Ball of light was meteorite older than Earth itself
The space rock blazed across the sky in broad daylight on June 26, sparking hundreds of reports from witnesses across Georgia and South Carolina.
The meteorite, now known as the 'McDonough Meteorite,' exploded with a loud boom, shaking the ground and capturing the attention of residents.
Researchers at the University of Georgia examined 23 grams of a meteorite fragment that smashed through a Georgia man's home.
It went through the roof, HAVC duct, and left a hole in the floor the size of a cherry tomato.
Planetary geologist Scott Harris concluded the space rock formed 4.56 billion years ago, roughly 20 million years before Earth.
'It belongs to a group of asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that we now think we can tie to a breakup of a much larger asteroid about 470 million years ago,' Harris said.
The homeowner said he continues to find specks of space dust scattered around his living room from the impact.
'A mysterious extraterrestrial visitor now has a permanent home and identity, thanks to University of Georgia (UGA) researchers,' the team shared in a press release.
'Multiple fragments, which tore through a residential roof in Henry County, were turned over to a UGA planetary geologist and impact expert to determine.'
Before breaking into fragments small enough to analyze, the meteor, known as a bolide, was recorded entering Earth's atmosphere at an incredible cosmic velocity.
This massive space rock hurtled toward McDonough at speeds exceeding the speed of sound.
'When they encounter Earth, our atmosphere is very good at slowing them down,' Harris said.
'But you're talking about something that is double the size of a 50-caliber shell, going at least 2,236 miles per second. That's like running 10 football fields in one second.'
Using optical and electron microscopy to examine the fragments, Harris identified the meteorite as a Low Metal (L) ordinary Chondrite.
This classification indicates the meteorite likely formed 4.56 billion years ago in an oxygen-rich environment.
This is the 27th meteorite recovered in Georgia in history, and the sixth witnessed fall.
Harris said the fragment broke the sound barrier when it entered the Earth's atmosphere.
'This is something that used to be expected once every few decades and not multiple times within 20 years,' Harris said.
'Modern technology, in addition to an attentive public, is going to help us recover more and more meteorites.'
Harris explained that although a fragment this small posed no danger, scientists study meteorite impacts to better understand their dynamics.
The ultimate goal is to assess the risks and prepare for potential threats that could cause catastrophic damage,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
22 minutes ago
- The Independent
NASA's nuclear gamble on the moon faces growing skepticism
Fast-tracking a NASA plan to build a nuclear reactor on the moon may sound dubious. Experts say that's because it is. 'The whole proposal is cock-eyed and runs against the sound management of a space program that is now being starved of money,' national security analyst, nuclear expert and author Joseph Cirincione told The Independent. Nuclear has been used in space since the 1960s. That's nothing new. The U.S. launched its first test reactor into orbit in 1965, and the former Soviet Union has sent up dozens more. NASA says that a new 100-kilowatt reactor could be used to power a future base at the lunar South Pole, and fuel prospective missions to Mars and beyond. Nuclear would help to fill gaps in solar energy that occur when that side of the moon is in darkness for two weeks. The majority of space experts have said that placing a reactor on the moon is possible, so, why is NASA's current plan 'cock-eyed?' The problem is the proposed timeline. Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, who also serves as President Donald Trump's Secretary of Transportation, pushed to expedite the project, detailed in a memo this week. Duffy said the administration wanted to have a nuclear reactor ready to launch by 2030. Earlier this year, China and Russia announced a plan to build a nuclear reactor for a lunar base by 2035. 'The first country to do so could potentially declare a 'keep-out' zone which would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned Artemis presence if not there first,' Duffy said. NASA first announced in 2021 that it would put a reactor on the moon 'within a decade.' In 2024, NASA then said that their target date for delivery a reactor to the Earth-based launchpad was the early 2030s. But, Cirincione says essentially no progress has been made. 'It was in the last Trump administration that NASA had put out a press release, they had a YouTube video, they had these announcements about how they're going to develop these small, modular nuclear reactors for use on the moon, and it was going to be ready by 2026,' said Cirincione, who is vice-chair of the Center for International Policy, a non-profit that advocates for a peaceful approach to foreign policy. 'Oh, really? So, where is it?' Ultimately, the expert believes a nuclear reactor on the moon could take up to 20 years to become a reality. NASA would need a working launch vehicle, a small and adaptable reactor, and the ability to land on the moon. Right now, the SpaceX Starship is the only vehicle option – but it has exploded during several of its test flights. NASA has been working with Boeing on a Space Launch System - the main competitor to Space X's Starship - but that program would be canceled under the Trump administration's proposed cuts which slash 24 percent from NASA's overall budget. Landing on the moon is no picnic, and attempts by Japanese space companies in 2023 and 2025 ended in crashes. There are also the scientific and technological advances needed for the nuclear reactors. The reactors must be able to withstand harsh conditions on the moon, including temperatures swings from 250 degrees Fahrenheit during the day to minus 400 degrees at night. 'Small modular nuclear reactors, it turns out, are always just around the corner – a corner you never get to turn,' Cirincione said. Many scientists and nuclear energy experts have shared in Cirincione's skepticism. Dr. Kathryn Huff, a former nuclear energy official at the U.S. Department of Energy, and professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wrote in a Bluesky social media post that she's not 'bullish' on 'unrealistic timelines.' 'The 2030 target does not align well with recent budgetary trends…' she explained in a statement, shared by the university. 'Accelerating the FSP program could come at the expense of other critical priorities, including earth science, climate observation and space-based weather forecasting – all core elements of NASA's public-serving mission.' Dr. Alfredo Carpineti, an Italian astrophysicist, wrote in IFLScience this week that the proposal is 'unfeasible.' 'Even if we allow landing the nuclear reactor on December 31, 2030, the timing is really too short for something that must not have any faults if you want to operate it safely,' Carpineti wrote. Others were more optimistic about NASA's accelerated timeline. Sebastian Corbisiero, a senior program manager at Idaho National Laboratory who leads the Energy Department's space reactor program, told The Independent that a nuclear reactor on the moon is 'doable' by 2030. 'Nuclear reactor technology has been around for decades, so its well known,' he said. 'Some key differences with a space reactor is that it needs to fit on a rocket, so there are mass and volume requirements; and that the system needs to operate in vacuum – so components will need to be built to survive that environment.' Dr. Bhavya Lal, a former associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy at NASA, and former aerospace executive Roger Myers, recently argued that it would be possible to have nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030, and it would take $3 billion to do so. 'It's possible, but it will require serious commitment,' Lal told The Independent. But even if plans are speeded up, Lal says there's no need to worry about the prospect of the moon blowing up. It's 'simply not grounded in science,' she said.
The Independent
22 minutes ago
- The Independent
AI could soon detect early voice box cancer from the sound of your voice
AI could soon be able to tell whether patients have cancer of the voice box using just a voice note, according to new research. Scientists recorded the voices of men with and without abormalities in their vocal folds - which can be an early sign of laryngeal cancer - and found differences in vocal qualities including pitch, volume, and clarity. They now say AI could be used to detect these 'vocal biomarkers', leading to earlier, less invasive diagnosis. Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University believe voice notes could now be used to train an AI tool that recognises vocal fold lesions. Using 12,523 voice recordings from 306 participants across North America, they found distinctive vocal differences in men suffering from laryngeal cancer, men with vocal fold lesions, and men with healthy vocal folds. However, researchers said similar hallmark differences were not detected in women. They are now hoping to collect more recordings of people with and without the distinctive vocal fold lesions to create a bigger dataset for tools to work from. In the UK, there are more than 2,000 new cases of laryngeal cancer each year. Symptoms can include a change in your voice, such as sounding hoarse, a high-pitched wheezing noise when you breathe, and a long-lasting cough. 'Here we show that with this dataset we could use vocal biomarkers to distinguish voices from patients with vocal fold lesions from those without such lesions,' said Dr Phillip Jenkins, the study's corresponding author said. 'To move from this study to an AI tool that recognises vocal fold lesions, we would train models using an even larger dataset of voice recordings, labeled by professionals. We then need to test the system to make sure it works equally well for women and men. 'Voice-based health tools are already being piloted. Building on our findings, I estimate that with larger datasets and clinical validation, similar tools to detect vocal fold lesions might enter pilot testing in the next couple of years," he predicted. It comes after research from US-based Klick Labs, which created an AI model capable of distinguishing whether a person has Type 2 diabetes from six to 10 seconds of voice audio. The study involved analysing 18,000 recordings in order to identify acoustic features that differentiated non diabetics from diabetics and reported an 89 per cent accuracy rating for women and 86 per cent for men. Jaycee Kaufman, a research scientist at Klick Labs, praised the future potential for AI-powered voice tools in healthcare, saying: 'Current methods of detection can require a lot of time, travel and cost. Voice technology has the potential to remove these barriers entirely.'
Daily Mail
22 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Bill Gates's butter is slammed for taste
A synthetic butter made entirely from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and backed by Bill Gates, has been called 'disgusting'. The spread is made by Savor, a company based in Batavia, Illinois, and is backed by the Microsoft founder. Their products are described on their website as: 'Delightfully rich foods without animals, farmland, fertilizers, hormones, or antibiotics. These are real fats, not a substitute.' Many users have slammed the product online as 'disgusting.' Celebrity chef Andrew Gruel wrote on X: 'Disgusting. They are combining hydrogen, carbon and oxygen to create fat molecules then manipulate that to taste like butter. Why do this when we already have butter?' The scientists say their recipe is made up of fat, water, a touch of lecithin as an emulsifier, and natural flavor and color. The finished butter allegedly contains no palm oil and is already being tested in restaurants and bakeries to hit the market in 2025. Retail sales could begin around 2027. Instead of farmland, fertilizers and cows, Savor uses an industrial process to turn carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water into fat molecules identical to those in dairy butter. The result, according to the company, looks, smells and tastes just like the real thing but is made with zero agriculture and zero emissions. 'So you're using this gas right now to cook your food and we're proposing that we would like to first make your food with-with that gas,' Kathleen Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Savor told CBS News. 'This is really about how we feed our species and heal our planet at the same time,' she added. While Gates has admitted the concept 'may seem strange at first,' he insists its potential to slash greenhouse gas emissions is 'immense.' 'The idea of switching to lab-made fats and oils may seem strange at first. But their potential to significantly reduce our carbon footprint is immense,' he wrote on his blog. Another critic accused Savor of using sustainability as a cover for centralizing food production. 'They're not trying to solve a food shortage. They're trying to engineer one… Once they own the source code for your food, they can alter it, gate it, and revoke access at will… The goal isn't to make butter without cows. The goal is to make humans without sovereignty.' Others emphasized health concerns and warned synthetic butter could 'cause heart attacks and obesity at a minimum.' Still some defended the concept, saying it could help feed developing countries if it's cheap to produce. 'If it's cheaper to produce, then it's great for developing countries, e.g. in Africa,' one user added. But the same person added that 'No one will force me to eat this butter, because the molecules can be cloned, but the authentic taste certainly cannot. Imagine putting this on your $50 steak.'
