Meteorites Archives

January 21, 2010April 10, 2017 by Nancy Atkinson

Meteorite Smashes Through Roof of Doctor’s Office

A small meteorite that fell from the sky into a doctor's office in Virgina on Jan. 18, 2010. Credit: Linda Welzenbach/Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

A meteorite came through the roof of a doctor’s office in Lorton, Virginia, USA. No one was hurt, but a hole was punched through the roof and ceiling. “It came through the roof, through the fire wall through the ceiling and hit the floor,” said Dr. Frank Ciampi in this video from WUSA TV.

When he heard the noise, he thought a set of bookshelves had fallen down. The rock broke into pieces, but put together are about the size of a tennis ball. A planetary scientist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, Cari Corrigan, confirmed the rock is a meteorite. She says the meteorite weighs just over a half pound (.22 kg) and was probably traveling about 350 kph (220 mph) when it struck the building.

Researchers say the meteorite is a chondrite, the most common type of space rocks that fall to Earth.

Lorton is just outside of the Washington, DC area, and has a population of about 28,000 people.

Source: WUSA News

November 20, 2009 by Nancy Atkinson

Video of Utah Fireball

Early Nov. 18th, eyewitnesses reported an explosion in the atmosphere above Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho in the western United States. Some said the fireball “turned night into day” and produced shock waves that shook the ground when it exploded just after midnight Mountain Standard Time. Infrasound recordings of the blast suggest a small asteroid hitting Earth’s atmosphere and exploding with an energy of 0.5 to 1 kiloton of TNT. As the sun rose in the morning, remnants of the explosion were visible as noctilucent clouds over the region. The best video of the extremely bright event was just recently released, from the University of Utah’s Eccles Observatory.
Continue reading “Video of Utah Fireball”

November 9, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nicholos Wethington

Camera Network Spies Anomalous Meteorite

A network of time-lapse cameras set up in the Nullarbor Plain desert of Western Australia has allowed researchers to track a fallen meteorite to the ground, and enabled them to determine its original orbit and parent body. The meteorite has a composition different than that of other meteors, leading researchers to believe that it originates from a different parent body than most meteorites that impact Earth. The Desert Fireball Network, a project coordinated by the Imperial College of London, was able to track the meteor when it entered the atmosphere, giving researchers an impact location and information on where it originated.

The Bunburra Rockhole meteorite – so named for the location where it was discovered – fell to the Earth on July 20th, 2007. The Desert Fireball Network cameras recorded the fireball produced when the meteor passed through the Earth’s atmosphere, and by studying the entry angle of the meteor, researchers from the Imperial College were able to locate it on the ground. It was found within 100 meters (300 feet) of where they had predicted it to be.

This meteorite weighs 324 grams (12 oz), and is composed of a rare type of basalt igneous rock. More specific information on the meteorite itself can be found on the Meteorological Society’s index. Most meteorites of this composition come from one parent body, the asteroid 4 Vesta. However, the Bunburra Rockhole meteorite likely came from a different asteroid with a different orbit, which means that the formation process for the asteroid happened in a different place in the Solar System than for 4 Vesta.

The researchers determined that the Bunburra Rockhole originated from an asteroid located in the innermost main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Because the Desert Fireball Network captured images on multiple cameras of how it entered the Earth’s atmosphere, the researchers were able to triangulate the position of the rock, and model its orbit backwards in time to determine its origins.

Dr Gretchen Benedix of the Natural History Museum – where the largest fragment of the meteorite is located – analyzed the mineral content of the meteorite. She said in a press release:

“It’s vital to have a meteorite with information about where it comes from in the solar system…. We’ve known for a long time that most meteorites are from the asteroid belt, but we don’t know exactly where. This kind of information helps us fit one more piece in the puzzle of how the solar system formed and evolved. The fact that this meteorite is compositionally unusual increases it’s value even more. It helps us to uncover more information about the conditions of the early solar system.”

The Desert Fireball Network monitors the Nullarbor desert in Western Australia, and has tracked a total of 7 meteorites, three of which have been recovered. The desert is an excellent location for this type of project, as observing conditions are clear many nights out of the year, and the sparse vegetation and monotone landscape make finding the meteorites easier than in other locations.

The results of the meteorite mineral and orbital study are published in Science, and two previous papers about the Bunburra Rockhole are available on the Desert Fireball Network site.

Source: Natural History Museum, Imperial College of London

November 7, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

One Strange Mars Rock

Opportunity has come upon another big rock on Mars. But what is it? Another meteorite? A big clump of ejecta from an old impact? There’s lots of other debris scattered around this area as well. The rock has been named “Marquette Island,” staying with the island theme for the other meteorites Oppy has come across, and the rover may take the “opportunity” to get closer to this rock and check it out, given the sand dunes surrounding it don’t provide too much of an obstacle. So maybe next week we’ll find out what it is. But in the meantime, enjoy these color and 3-D images (see more below) of the rock via Stu Atkinson from Unmannedspaceflight.com. Check out more great looks at Marquette Island at Stu’s blog about Oppy’s travels, Road to Endeavour.

Oh, and rumor has it that the extrication process may have begun to free the Spirit rover. Latest images show she has moved every so slightly. More as it becomes available….

Marquette Island, from a distance. Credit: NASA/JPL, color by Stu Atkinson

Marquette Island in 3-D. Credit: NASA/JPL, 3-D by Stu Atkinson

October 26, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Impact in Latvia Creates 20-Meter Crater

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A possible meteorite fall near in northern Latvia on Sunday left a crater approximately 20 meters (66 feet) in diameter and 10 meters (33 feet) deep. UPDATE: Many reports now say the impact was a fake; The Bad Astronomer says “shovel” marks were found around the perimeter of the crater; additionally, a burning impactor is highly unlikely (see video below). And here’s an article from the Associated press. , and another from Yahoo news, where a phone company in Latvia admits the “crater” was a publicity stunt.

Our earlier report:
No one was injured, as the impact occurred outside the small town of Mazsalaca, although houses were nearby. Early reports said it was not clear whether it was an asteroid or a space satellite, but later news indicated it was a meteorite strike. Another account said it might be a hoax, as a cover-up of illegal weapons tests. One report said a witness saw the object falling through the sky, leaving a burning trail behind, and said it was making a noise similar to the one of an aircraft flying at a low altitude. See a video of the crater below.

A spokesperson for the Latvian State Fire and Rescue Service said that rescuers and soldiers immediately cordoned off the territory, as they wanted to guard against any radioactive contamination if it was a satellite.

See this link for more images of the crater.

We’ll post more news about the crater as it becomes available.

Sources: RiaNovosti, ITAR-TASS

Hat tip to @cosmos4U on Twitter

October 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

More Chunks of SUV-Smashing Meteorite Found

Grimsby homeowner Yvonne Garchinski and Western Physics and Astronomy associate professor Peter Brown speak to national media where a 4.6-billion-year-old meterorite smashed the window of Garchinski's truck Sept. 25. The pair are wearing gloves to protect the meteorite.

Three golf ball-sized fragments have been found from a meteorite that created a brilliant fireball seen over Ontario, Canada on September 25, 2009. The first meteorite fragment recovered did some damage to the windshield of a Nissan Pathfinder, and now two other fragments have been found on nearby properties. The meteor made headlines initially because it was captured on video by Western’s Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN) on seven of its ‘all-sky’ cameras. The brightness was estimated to be approximately 100 times brighter than a full moon.

Initially, the owners of the SUV didn’t realize the “unusual” rock they found on the hood of the vehicle was a meteorite and chalked up the shattered windshield to vandalism and filed a police report.
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Tony Garchinski said heard a loud crash just after 9 p.m. the night of the meteor flyby he didn’t think much of it. That is, until he awoke the next morning to find the windshield of his mom’s truck with a huge crack in it.

It wasn’t until two weeks later that his mother, Yvonne Garchinski, heard media reports that researchers from Western were searching West Grimsby, Ontario for possible fragments of a freshly fallen meteorite. The Garchinskis realized who the real culprit was in the case of the broken windshield — or more specifically, what.

The ‘what’ was a 46-gram completely fusion-crusted (melted exterior) fragment of an ordinary chondrite meteorite. Chondrites are arguably the most important type of meteorite because they are the least processed of meteorites and provide a window into the material which formed the early solar system. The meteorite is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old.

Phil McCausland, a postdoctoral fellow at Western’s Centre for Planetary Science & Exploration said, “Having both the video and the sample is golden because we get the dynamic information and the orbital direction from the video, and by having recovered material on the ground, we can complete the picture. We can take a rock that we now have in hand and we can study it in the best laboratories in the world and we can put it back into its solar system context. We can put it back into where it came from.”

The Garchinski property is just 200 meters off the fall line of the meteorite the Western Meteor Physics Group calculated using data from its video, radar and sound detection systems and thanks in large part to this research – along with a lot of luck – two more meteorite fragments have been found.

The second meteorite was found by the Western team not far from the Garchinski home but the land owner wishes to remain anonymous. The third fragment was found Oct. 18 by professional meteorite hunter Mike Farmer (www.meteoriteguy.com) on the side of a road in West Grimsby.

The Western-led search continues and both Brown and McCausland believe more fragments will be found.

Source: Western University

October 7, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Pictures and Videos Capture Canadian Fireball from Sept. 25, 2009

Composite all-sky camera image of the end of the fireball as seen from Hamilton (Camera #3, McMaster). Available below are movies of the event as seen by several of the SOMN cameras, as well as animations of the object's arrival at Earth. Credit: University of Western Ontario

A brilliant fireball seen over Ontario, Canada on September 25, 2009 was captured by seven all-sky cameras of the University of Western Ontario’s Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN.) The fireball was seen widely by observers throughout southern Ontario and adjacent areas. The fireball was first detected by Western’s camera systems at an altitude of 100km, and moving southeastwards at 20.8 km/s. From the data collected, the researchers believe the meteoroid was initially about a meter wide, or about the size of a child’s tricycle. At its brightest, the fireball was approximately 100 times as bright as the full moon.

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Researchers at Western are interested in hearing from anyone within 10 km of Grimsby, Ontario who may have witnessed or recorded this evening event, seen or heard unusual events at the time, or who may have found possible fragments of the freshly fallen meteorite.

The event occurred at 9:03 pm local time on Sept. 25, or 01:03 UT Sept. 26.

Analysis of the all-sky camera records as well as data from Western’s meteor radar and infrasound equipment indicates that this bright fireball was large enough to have dropped meteorites in a region south of Grimsby on the Niagara Peninsula, providing masses that may total as much as several kilograms.

To see more videos or images, or if you have questions, observations or possible meteorites check out Western’s website.

October 5, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Understanding 2008 TC3 a Year After Impact

Discovery images of asteroid 2008 TC3, as it was seen on October 6, 2008, by the Catalina Sky Survey at Mount Lemmon in Arizona (Richard Kowalski).

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The first asteroid to have been spotted before hitting Earth, 2008 TC3, crashed in northern Sudan one year ago on October 6. Several astronomers have been trying to piece together a profile of this asteroid, pulling together information from meteorites found at the impact site and the images captured of the object in the hours before it crashed to Earth.

“We have a gigantic jigsaw puzzle on our hands, from which we try to create a picture of the asteroid and its origins,” said SETI Institute astronomer Peter Jenniskens, who worked at the crash site, “and now we have with a composite sketch of the culprit, cleverly using the eyewitness accounts of astronomers that saw the asteroid sneak up on us.” Their description? 2008 TC3 looked like a loaf of walnut-raisin bread.

“The asteroid now has a face,” said Jenniskens, chair of the special session at the fall meeting for the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. Last December, Jenniskens and Sudan astronomer Muawia Shaddad went to the crash site and recovered 300 fragments in the Nubian Desert. Like detectives, students from the University of Khartoum helped sweep the desert to look for remains of the asteroid. They found many different-looking meteorites close to, but a little south, of the calculated impact trajectory.

The team has also been able to recreate the shape of the asteroid from looking at images captured by Astronomers Marek Kozubal and Ron Dantowitz of the Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Massachusetts, who tracked the asteroid with a telescope and captured the flicker of light during a two hour period just before impact.

An irregular shape and rapid tumbling caused asteroid 2008 TC3 to flicker when it reflected sunlight on approach to Earth.

Peter Scheirich and colleagues at Ondrejov Observatory and Charles University in the Czech Republic combined all the various observations to work out the shape and orientation of the asteroid.

Watch a video recreation of 2008 TC3 tumbling in space.

Larger version. (1.32 MB Mpeg 4 file)

Video of 2008 TC3 as seen through a telescope (large file, 7.63 MB)

Other forensic evidence based on analysis of the recovered meteorites at the Almahata Sitta site showed the asteroid was an unusual “polymict ureilite” type. Jason S. Herrin of NASA’s Johnson Space Center confirmed that the meteorites still carry traces of being heated to 1150-1300 degrees C, before rapidly cooling down at a rate of tens of degrees C per hour, during which carbon in the asteroid turned part of the olivine mineral iron into metallic iron. Hence, asteroid 2008 TC3 is the remains of a minor planet that endured massive collisions billions of years ago, melting some of the minerals, but not all, before a final collision shattered the planet into asteroids.

Mike Zolensky of NASA’s Johnson Space Center first pointed out that, as far as ureilites are concerned, his meteorite is unusually rich in pores, with pore walls coated by crystals of the mineral olivine. He now reports, from X-ray tomography work with Jon Friedrich of Fordham University in New York, that those pores appear to outline grains that have been incompletely welded together and that the pore linings appear to be vapor phase deposits. According to Zolensky, “Almahata Sitta may represent an agglomeration of coarse- to fine-grained, incompletely reduced pellets formed during impact, and subsequently welded together at high temperature.”

The carbon in the recovered meteorites is among the most cooked of all known meteorites. Carbon crystals of graphite and nanodiamonds have been detected. Still, it turns out that some of the organic matter in the original material survived the heating. Amy Morrow, Hassan Sabbah, and Richard Zare of Stanford University have found polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in high abundances. Amazingly, Michael Callahan and colleagues of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center now report that even some amino acids have survived.

Jenniskens and Shaddad plan to revisit the scene of the crash in the Nubian Desert. They reported their findings at the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Puerto Rico.

Listen to Oct. 6th’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast by Emily Lakdawalla about 2008 TC3.

Source: AAS Planetary Science Division

October 2, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Opportunity Finds Another Big Meteorite

Another Mars meteorite seen by Opportunity. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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It’s amazing what a rover can find laying by the side of the road. The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found a rock that apparently is another meteorite. Less than three weeks ago, Opportunity drove away from a larger meteorite called “Block Island” that the rover examined for six weeks. Now, this new meteorite, dubbed “Shelter Island,” is another fairly big rock, about 47 centimeters (18.8 inches) long, that fell from the skies. Block Island is about 60 centimeters (2 feet) across and was just 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) away from this latest meteorite find. At first look, the two meteorites look to be of a similar makeup; Opportunity found that Block Island was is made of nickel and iron.

This image was taken during Oppy’s 2,022nd Martian day, or sol, (Oct. 1, 2009).

See below for a 3-D version of this image created by Stu Atkinson.

Shelter Island in 3-D. Dimensionalized by Stu Atkinson

July 21, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Heat-Shocked Diamonds Provide New Clue of Horse-Killing Impact

California's Channel Islands, where heat-shocked soot and diamonds are suggesting a killing comsic impact. Courtesy NOAA and UC Santa Barbara

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Archeologists have been divided about whether an extraterrestiral impact blasted North America about 12,900 years ago, wreaking havoc on Earth’s surface and sending scores of species — including a pygmy mammoth and the horse — into oblivion.

New clues from California’s Channel Islands should put any doubt to rest, says an international team of researchers.

This transmission electron microscopy close-up shows a single lonsdaleite crystal, left, and associated diffraction pattern. Credit: University of Oregon

The 17-member team, led by University of Oregon archaeologist Douglas J. Kennett, has found what may be the smoking gun.

The team has found shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds in 12,900-year-old sediments on the Northern Channel Islands off the southern California coast.

The tiny diamonds and diamond clusters were buried deeply below four meters (13 feet) of sediment. They date to the end of Clovis — a Paleoindian culture long thought to be North America’s first human inhabitants. The nano-sized diamonds were pulled from Arlington Canyon on the island of Santa Rosa, which had once been joined with three other Northern Channel Islands in a landmass known as Santarosae.

The diamonds were found in association with soot that forms in extremely hot fires, and they suggest associated regional wildfires, based on nearby environmental records.

Such soot and diamonds are rare in the geological record. They were found in sediment dating to massive asteroid impacts 65 million years ago in a layer widely known as the K-T Boundary. The thin layer of iridium-and-quartz-rich sediment dates to the transition of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, which mark the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the Cenozoic Era.

“The type of diamond we have found — Lonsdaleite — is a shock-synthesized mineral defined by its hexagonal crystalline structure. It forms under very high temperatures and pressures consistent with a cosmic impact,” Kennett said. “These diamonds have only been found thus far in meteorites and impact craters on Earth and appear to be the strongest indicator yet of a significant cosmic impact [during Clovis].”

The age of this event also matches the extinction of the pygmy mammoth on the Northern Channel Islands, as well as numerous other North American mammals, including the horse, which Europeans later reintroduced. In all, an estimated 35 mammal and 19 bird genera became extinct near the end of the Pleistocene with some of them occurring very close in time to the proposed cosmic impact, first reported in October 2007 in PNAS.

Source: University of Oregon, via Eurekalert. The results appear in a paper online ahead of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.