A scientist who examined the meteorite that tunnelled through a man’s roof in the United States confirmed that it was older than Earth itself.
Quite a bit earlier: fragment show that this fireball was 20 million years older than Earth.
On June 26, the meteor blazed visibly over Georgia and South Carolina, also creating audible booms.
By the time it punctured through a man’s room and dented his floor, the meteorite had shrunk into the size “of a cherry tomato”.
But “McDonough Meteorite” sure took a long way to get there.
“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”, University of Georgia planetary geologist Scott Harris, who studied the fragments under a microscope, informed.
Meanwhile, the victim is still sweeping up pesky cosmic dust from his living room floor.
Hopefully his insurance company has since reimbursed him.
Tonight’s the night – for the Perseid Meteor Shower, that is
