A meteorite that ripped through the roof of a home in Georgia earlier this summer is older than Earth itself, according to a scientist who examined fragments of the space rock.
A mysterious fireball blazed across the sky in broad daylight on June 26, sparking hundreds of siting reports in Georgia and South Carolina. According to NASA, the meteor exploded over Georgia, creating booms heard by residents in the area.
University of Georgia planetary geologist Scott Harris said in a press release Friday that he examined 23 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.
“This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough,” he said.
Examining the fragments under microscopes, Harris concluded the meteorite formed 4.56 billion years ago. That is roughly 20 million years older than the 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 told Harris he’s still finding specks of space dust around his living room from the collision.
Harris said University of Georgia scientists and colleagues at Arizona State University plan to submit their findings to the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. They propose naming the space rock the McDonough Meteorite, reflecting the name of the Georgia city where it plunged to Earth.
According to the university, this is the 27th meteorite recovered in Georgia and 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.”
