A meteorite that survived atmospheric entry and smashed through the roof of a Georgia home earlier this year may have formed before Earth itself, according to a scientist from the University of Georgia who analyzed fragments of the wandering solar system object.
Residents of several southeastern U.S. states were dazzled on Jul. 26 when they witnessed a rare daytime fireball — bright enough to be registered by an orbiting satellite — blazing Earthward.
The ancient asteroid shard at the heart of the event weathered the intense friction of atmospheric entry to punch a hole through the roof of a house in the city of McDonough, Georgia, shattering the floor a mere 14 feet (4 meters) from an unsuspecting resident.
How old is the McDonough Meteorite?
23-grams-worth of the fragmented meteorite — the name given to meteoroids that reach the ground intact — were later transported to the University of Georgia (UGA), where scientists set to work unravelling the secrets of its origins. “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 UGA researcher Scott Harris.
The newly named McDonough Meteorite is thought to be a Low Metal (L) ordinary Chondrite — one of the most ancient forms of rock known to exist in the solar system — that likely formed some 4.56 billion years ago, potentially making it slightly older than 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,” said Harris. That destructive event could have shunted the McDonough asteroid into an Earth-crossing orbit that would eventually see it partially redecorate one Henry County home.
Harris aims to publish a paper detailing the composition of the meteorite along with information about its atmospheric entry later this year. Shards of the McDonough Meteorite are also due to be displayed at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia.
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