alt Hacker NewsPSA: meteors have nothing to do with explosions. The shockwave comes from meteor's movement alone, the parts never move apart with any speed comparable to their common forward motion.
A breakup will increase surface area and therefore kinetic energy to shockwave transfer efficiency, still not an explosion.
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>The shockwave comes from meteor's movement alone, the parts never move apart with any speed comparable to their common forward motion..
PSA is false.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/watch-the-skies/2026/03/26/its-fi...
PSA: The word "explosion" has multiple definitions, plenty of which are actually quite reasonable to apply to meteors! It can refer to the sound alone, for example. The people reporting an explosion in Massachusetts were not incorrect!
It would however, be incorrect to claim that the meteor had noting to do with explosions.
The Wikipedia article on "meteor air burst" has an explanation that basically matches yours, although they do use the word "explosion" to describe it. Which makes sense to me: whatever one chooses to call it, it's a nearly instantaneous spontaneous disassembly that is very bright, very hot, and very loud.
You are correct in class 9 physics book in India we have a mention of supersonic planes producing a sonic "boom" so the suprsonic planes don't themselves explode but their fast movement makes the air produce the boom. So you were correct as far as I can tell. But meteors do get smaller and smaller due to extreme friction from air and they do break into several pieces so that can also add to the sound.