University of Georgia scientists say it originated from an asteroid breakup in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. (Image Credits: The New York Post)
A meteorite that tore through the roof of a Georgia home earlier this year has been identified as being over 4.5 billion years old, making it older than our planet itself, researchers from the University of Georgia revealed.
Dubbed the McDonough Meteorite, the ancient space rock crash-landed in the Henry County city of McDonough on June 26, startling residents with a sound likened to a “close-range gunshot.”
The meteorite fragments pierced the home’s roof, sliced through an HVAC duct, and dented the floor before shattering into dust. Scott Harris, a planetary geologist and impact expert at UGA, analyzed the samples to uncover the rock’s origins and history.
“It has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough,” Harris explained. “To totally understand that, we have to examine what the rock is and determine what group of asteroids it belongs to.”
The homeowner, whose name has not been released, still finds space dust in the living room, months after the event.
According to Harris, the McDonough Meteorite belongs to a group of asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Researchers believe it originated from the breakup of a much larger asteroid around 470 million years ago.
The ordinary chondrite meteorite contains low metal content and is believed to be 4.56 billion years old, around 20 million years older than Earth itself.
Scientists noted that meteorites entering Earth’s atmosphere can travel at speeds faster than sound. In this case, the meteor was double the size of a .50-caliber shell and moving at least 1 kilometer per second, the equivalent of covering 10 football fields in one second.
While the atmosphere slows such objects considerably, the energy at impact can still be immense. Harris said the homeowner likely heard three sounds at once, the impact on the roof, a miniature sonic boom, and the final strike on the floor.
“There was enough energy when it hit the floor that it pulverized part of the material down to literal dust fragments,” Harris noted.
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For their analysis, UGA researchers were given 23 grams of the 50 grams of space rock recovered from the home. The findings will help scientists better understand asteroid composition, the frequency of such impacts, and the potential consequences of much larger space rocks entering Earth’s atmosphere.
“This gives us insights into how much Earth can handle from larger inbound space rocks,” Harris added, emphasizing the meteorite’s scientific importance.
