This Was NYC's Skyline Tuesday

A meteor streaked across the sky above New York City on Tuesday morning, stunning residents—at least those who could be bothered to look up. "A meteor that had traveled millions of miles through deep space entered the atmosphere, passed above the Statue of Liberty, zoomed over the tourist boats of New York Harbor, streaked over the Midtown Manhattan skyline, and exploded very, very high over the region," the New York Times reports, adding that the daytime show was mostly overlooked amid the chaos of the city. As NBC New York reporter Pat Battle noted, "I heard it ... but I never thought to look up."

Still, some observant residents as far away as New Jersey reported seeing a fireball late in the morning. There were also reports of shaking, though NASA said this could be explained by "military activity in the vicinity," per ABC News. Based on reports, NASA's Meteor Watch made a "very crude" determination that the small meteor, about a foot in diameter, was initially spotted about 49 miles above New York Harbor around 11:17am ET before flying over the Statue of Liberty and breaking up some 29 miles above Midtown. Traveling at around 38,000mph, it "looked like a flaming, long rod ... flying through the sky," one witness tells ABC.

Another teary-eyed witness waxed poetic on the magic of the moment. "You forget about these incredible moments in life, when so much else is going on," the woman tells the Times. Meanwhile, a Brooklyn resident suggests it was a sign that "something's brewing." NASA said the meteor was too small to pose a danger. "We do not (actually cannot) track things this small at significant distances from the Earth," the agency said. "So the only time we know about them is when they hit the atmosphere and generate a meteor or a fireball." A fireball so small is "incapable of surviving all the way to the ground," the agency added. (More meteor stories.)