A Search for Hydroacoustic Signals from BolidesOPEN ACCESS
P. Brown, L. McFadden, D. McCormack, M. Adams, D. Vida
accepted Apr 14, 2026 to Icarus as part of Meteoroids 2025 conference special issue
“Survey of 30 bright fireballs for associated hydroacoustic signals
- A 1 kT bolide on Sep 2, 2003 possibly detected
- We set limits on fireball hydroacoustic coupling efficiency (η) to be ≤10−10
- Based on a well characterized aircraft oceanic impact, we find an energy transfer efficiency for surface ocean impacts into the SOFAR channel of 10−4.”
“Here we present a survey aimed at detecting hydroacoustic signals from fireballs using the six hydrophone stations operated as part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) International Monitoring System. We identified 30 fireballs where propagation paths to stations exist. These included high energy fireballs (E ≥ 5 kT), those which occurred over favorable locations for coupling into the deep ocean as well as a selection of bolides close to CTBTO hydrophone stations. The largest of these impactors were > 5 meters in diameter. From theoretical and empirical considerations we show that direct hydroacoustic shock transmission is the most likely source mechanism, though large meteorites impacting the ocean surface from a fireball might be detectable in extreme cases.
We find one possible instance of a fireball occurring on Sep 2, 2003 off the coast of Alaska, where a linked hydroacoustic signal with the expected timing and backazimuth is detected. However, given the size of our survey and the random background rate of signals, this detection is statistically weak.
We conclude that hydroacoustic detection in the SOFAR channel of fireballs is very rare. Using our chosen set of signal processing parameters, assuming direct path H-phase signals, adopting a signal celerity range of 1.42-1.55 km/s we find no unambigous detections in 53 station-fireball pairs. Based on SOFAR-equivalent yields derived assuming the minimum detectable amplitude signal family association is representative of the noise background in our survey we estimate a conditional upper limit for fireball coupling efficiency of order 10^{-10}. A single well recorded airplane impact provides an empirical estimate for the energy coupling of surface ocean impacts to the SOFAR channel of 10^{-4} for high velocity surface impacts.”
