* Astronomy

Mystery still surrounds the huge bang that rattled windows across Whitby and the Esk Valley on Monday afternoon.
The boom could be heard from Whitby to Goathland and Glaisdale at around 3.05pm.

"There was a loud bang coupled with a shaking of the house. It rattled all the doors and the windows and everything. It seemed to come from the valley" - Ken Hirst of Ridge Lane, Briggswath.

"We had neighbours leaning out of the windows saying what was that? My immediate reaction was had there been an explosion in Middlesborough" - Annabel Dore of Briggswath.

Whitby police and fire brigade confirmed nothing had exploded and said they assumed the bang was a sonic boom.
A spokesman for RAF Fylingdales said they did not hear the bang and as far as he was aware it was nothing to do with them.

"It has either been a sonic boom from an aircraft or it could have been a bolide breaking up in the air. We have had one or two around Whitby. I don't know why but Whitby seems to be quite favoured" - Mark Dawson, Whitby and District Astronomical Society.

Bolides are large meteors, which are relatively common and can be heard two to three times a year.
It could also have been debris from Geminids, which are meteor showers which occur annually between 6-19 December – reaching their peak on 13 December.

"It would have had to have been football-sized to cause a bang like that" - Mark Dawson .

A British Geological Survey Global Seismology Unit spokesman said it had not recorded any unusual activity in the area.
He said this would suggest it was not a mine collapsing or an earthquake and was more likely to have been a sonic boom.
But it looks like no-one will ever know for sure just what caused the bang.

"Unless there are reports from anybody seeing anything fragment we are probably not going to find out" - Mark Dawson.

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