The release of pressure from this "cone" along the flight path is acute and heard as a sonic boom. Aerodynamicists - experts who study the motion of air and how it reacts to foreign bodies - explain this phenomenon as a byproduct of shock waves created by the object pushing aside air molecules in its path with great force, similar to the way a ship creates waves while traveling across the sea.Īs high-speed aircrafts displace the molecules around it, each leaves a "cone" of pressurized air in its wake that extends to the ground, according to NASA. What causes a sonic boom?Ī sonic boom happens when any flying object disrupts the structure of the air surrounding it, while moving faster than the speed of sound. Modern commercial flights typically fly at speeds that fall within the transonic range, although the now-retired Concorde plane was one of the world's first commercial supersonic airliners. The sound is generated by shock waves that ripple through the atmosphere when air particles are displaced by a vessel of some kind, like a military jet or a spacecraft, that is moving rapidly. Noise produced by a sonic boom is often likened to a jolting clap of thunder or an explosion, and many people who heard the boom on Sunday turned to social media wondering whether the latter had occurred. Approximating the distance of a lighting strike during a storm is one of its more practical uses. Scientists determined this measurement based on what they consider "standard" atmospheric conditions. Supersonic refers to the speed of an object traveling faster than the speed of sound, which is about 761 miles per hour, or 1,100 feet per second, in dry air when the temperature is roughly 60 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level. The loud, blaring sound that people on the ground can hear and sometimes feel when an aircraft or a meteor flies overhead at supersonic speeds is called a sonic boom, according to NASA. In 2020, a meteor that disintegrated as it fell from the sky caused a sonic boom that people felt from the Canadian province of Ontario down to Virginia, the American Meteor Society reported at the time. Aircrafts are not alone in their ability to produce a sonic boom. The sound shook neighborhoods in Illinois and Oregon, where residents said they feared an earthquake had struck. In 2021, an F-16 jet corrected course while flying over central Illinois, creating a large sonic boom as it broke the sound barrier. The bureau also said at the time that flares were used in an effort to gain the pilot's attention, and they may have been visible to the public as well. "The NORAD aircraft were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom may have been heard by residents of the region," NORAD said in a statement. The military scramble was conducted by the 113th Fighter Wing of the D.C. They were ordered to intercept the Cessna because its pilot did not respond to radio transmissions and was following "a strange flight path," a U.S. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement that it deployed the F-16 fighter jets after authorities detected an unresponsive Cessna 560 Citation V aircraft, a private plane, that had entered restricted airspace over a section of the capitol where some national landmarks are located. Residents of Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia were startled on Sunday afternoon by an explosive noise that reverberated overhead, which officials later confirmed was a sonic boom produced as United States military jets flew at high speeds across the area. after fighter jets scramble to intercept unresponsive small plane 05:54
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