Meteorite that shot through roof of Henry County home was moving at speed of sound, scientist says
Speaking with Channel 2's Linda Stouffer, R. Scott Harris, a planetary geologist, gave new details about the meteorite fragments he's studying.
The flash in the Georgia sky in June, described by witnesses as a fireball, traveled hundreds of millions of miles through space before entering the Earth's atmosphere, eventually crashing into a home.
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'This one went through a house in McDonough, and the whole mass, we estimate, was probably like the size of a large cherry tomato,' Harris said. 'We're talking about something more than twice the diameter of a .50 caliber bullet coming through at least, but maybe greater than the speeds of our highest performance military rifles. And so it if had hit a person, we would not be having a fun conversation.'
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Harris studies the way objects from space hit planetary surfaces and works as a researcher with the University of Georgia.
Stouffer learned the fireball that exploded into the Georgia sky last month will now be called the McDonough meteorite.
He said the black portion of the meteorite fragments would be from the outside of it, where it was freshly exposed to the light of the sun.
'Never seen the light of day, light of our sun over 4.5 billion years,' Harris said.
Harris told Stouffer he believes that when the fireball 'detonated,' it was flying at about the speed of sound, including when it flew into a house in Henry County.
'Absolutely clean shot, through the roof, through the insulation, through the ceiling,' Harris said. 'There's about a third that is sort of missing, not really missing but pulverized to dust.'
Using an electron microscope, Harris analyzed the materials in the fragments to see what minerals and metals may have been in the object.
'You see the bright objects here are the metal and metal sulfides,' Harris explained, showing the scans and images from the analysis. 'Mostly minerals that you might find here on Earth.'
This meteorite contains metal, and minerals including olivine (also known as peridot) and feldspars.
'This is a type of meteorite called an ordinary chondrite,' Harris said.
One of the larger fragment pieces is at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville. Staff there say they're working to bring it onto display so you can see it later this year.
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