The Canadian homeowners returned home in July 2024 to find a star-shaped gray dust pattern on a walkway in front of their home on Prince Edward Island.
Curious about the dust, the homeowners checked video footage from their security camera and saw a surprising moment: a rock that appeared to be a meteorite falling from space and crash-landing on the walkway of their home, scientists at the University of Massachusetts said. Alberta who published their findings of the accident earlier this week.
University of Alberta
Ring doorbell camera footage shows an idyllic, lush setting framed by the security camera for about five seconds when suddenly something appears in the frame and crashes into what appears to be the driveway of the house on the side of a driveway. stone.
The crash sounds like glass breaking or a pot falling when the meteor hits the walkway. Chris Herd, a science professor at the University of Alberta, said this is the first time the sound and image of a meteorite fall has been documented on video.
“No other meteorite fall has been documented like this, with complete sound,” Herd said in a statement. “It adds a whole new dimension to the natural history of the island.”
Herd – who is also a university curator meteorite collection – arrived at the site 10 days after the possible fall of the meteorite to document the origin of the fragments found by the owners. They collected 7 grams of rock from the grass next to the walkway and recovered more samples using a vacuum cleaner and a magnet. Herd also measured a 2 x 2 cm indentation in the hallway formed by the impact.
University of Alberta
He discovered that the fragments were in fact a meteorite and said it was an ordinary chondrite with features that helped explain why it broke apart upon hitting the ground.
Meteorites can crash into Earth, but this is usually rare. In May 2023, another homeowner reported that a meteorite crashed through her roof in New Jersey.
Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute, told CBS Philadelphia at the time: “For it to actually hit a house, for people to be able to detect it, is really unusual and has happened very few times in history.”
Kerry Breen contributed to this report.
