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USA Today
21 hours ago
- Science
- USA Today
A meteorite crashes into a Georgia home. Turns out it's older than Earth.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope! According to experts, it's a meteorite older than Earth. A meteorite "crash landed" in Georgia on June 26. Particles that tore through the roof of a home in Henry County, Georgia, 31 miles southeast of Atlanta, were donated to a planetary geologist at the University of Georgia (UGA) to figure out where it came from and its classification, according to an Aug. 8 press release published by the university. 'This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough, and in order to totally understand that, we actually have to examine what the rock is and determine what group of asteroids it belongs to,' Scott Harris, a researcher in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences' department of geology, said in a statement. The meteorite, the 27th one recovered from Georgia, was named the McDonough Meteorite after the area in which it landed, according to UGA. All meteorites get their names from the zip code they were found in. How old is the meteorite? The meteorite is believed to be 4.56 billion years old, UGA stated. By comparison, the Earth is only 4.54 billion years old, according to the Planetary Society. More news: Farmers' Almanac winter forecast for 2025-2026: A long season of cold, snow across US What happened? In June, people across Georgia watched as a fireball, a very bright meteor, broke apart in the sky. But that's not where its journey ended, according to UGA. A piece of that fireball forced its way into a Georgia home. It fell fast enough to tear through the homeowner's roof, ductwork, and ceiling before it finally crash-landed, denting the floor of the house. Fireball was seen beyond Georgia Georgia was not the only state that saw the fireball on June 26. The American Meteor Society received 241 reports across several states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The rock was around three feet in diameter and weighed more than a ton. The National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Georgia, also received reports of what felt like earthquakes, but was most likely sonic booms, a quick, thunder-like sound that is created when aircraft, like rockets and planes, go faster than the speed of sound. Where is the meteorite now? UGA was given 23 of the 50 grams recovered from the home, according to the press release. Harris analyzed the fragments and believes that the meteor is a "Low Metal (L) ordinary Chondrite," according to the press release. '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. 'But in that breakup, some pieces get into Earth-crossing orbits, and if given long enough, their orbit around the sun and Earth's orbit around the sun end up being at the same place, at the same moment in time.' Given the classification, Harris expects that the meteorite was formed in the presence of oxygen all those billions of years ago. The meteorite will be stored at UGA so it can be studied further, but additional pieces that also fell in the area will be on display at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, around 43 miles northwest of Atlanta. Contributing: Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY NETWORK; Joel Shannon, USA TODAY Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. Connect with her on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and TikTok: @juliamariegz, or email her at jgomez@
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Science
- Indian Express
Meteorite that hit home in US this summer is older than earth, researchers say
A meteorite that crashed into a home in Atlanta, Georgia, is older than our planet Earth, according to a scientist who examined a fragment of the space rock. 'This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough, and in order to totally understand that, we actually have to examine what the rock is and determine what group of asteroids it belongs to,' said Scott Harris, a researcher in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences' department of geology. Harris examined 23 of the 50 grams of meteorite fragments recovered from a piece the size of a cherry tomato that struck a man's roof like a bullet and left a dent in the floor of the home outside Atlanta. '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 says. 'But in that breakup, some pieces get into Earth-crossing orbits, and if given long enough, their orbit around the sun and Earth's orbit around the sun end up being at the same place, at the same moment in time.' The geologist used optical and electron microscopy to determine that the rock was a chondrite, a type of meteorite that originated in the early solar system and is rich in carbon, water, and clay materials. In fact, according to NASA, chondrites are the most abundant type of stony meteorite. Harris said that scientists at the University of Georgia, along with colleagues from Arizona State University, plan to submit their findings to the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. They have proposed naming the space rock the McDonough Meteorite, reflecting the name of the Georgia city where it struck the Earth. The University of Georgia said the meteorite studied by Hariss and the team , was the the 27th meteorite recovered in the history of the state, and was among the sixth witnessed fall. '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.' Over the years, scientists have sought to understand the role of meteorites in the formation of the solar system. Earth formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago. In its infancy, it was bombarded by meteorites, comets, and other material from space. In June, the American Meteor Society received reports of a fireball that streaked across the southeastern U.S. sky in broad daylight. NASA confirmed that the meteor entered Earth's atmosphere during the Bootids meteor shower, a relatively minor celestial event occurring in the last week of June. Around the same time, a resident of Henry County, Georgia, reported that a rock, now identified as the McDonough Meteorite, crashed through their ceiling, according to the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. The object broke through the roof and ceiling before cracking the flooring inside the home. 'I suspect that he heard three simultaneous things. One was the collision with his roof, one was a tiny cone of a sonic boom and a third was it impacting the floor all in the same moment,' Harris said. 'There was enough energy when it hit the floor that it pulverized part of the material down to literal dust fragments.'
