Unprecedented video shows falling meteorite, records sound of impact
A home security camera captured a falling meteorite and the sound it made when it hit the walkway leading to a house in Canada, the incident occurring just moments after the homeowner departed for a walk with his dogs.
Joe Velaidum of Prince Edward Island told CBC News if he had lingered a couple more minutes before walking his dogs, he might have been struck by the meteorite.
“The shocking thing for me is that I was standing right there a couple of minutes right before this impact,” Velaidum told CBC News. “If I’d have seen it, I probably would’ve been standing right there, so it probably would’ve ripped me in half.”
Velaidum recovered about 7 grams of the shattered rock from the grass next to the walkway, and later picked up more samples using a vacuum and magnet, according to the University of Alberta.
The incident occurred last July, but details and the unprecedented video were just released by the University of Alberta on Monday.
“As the first and only meteorite from the province of PEI, the Charlottetown Meteorite sure announced its arrival in a spectacular way,” Chris Herd, the University of Alberta’s meteorite collection curator, said. “No other meteorite fall has been documented like this, complete with sound. It adds a whole new dimension to the natural history of the Island.”
Herd confirmed it was a meteorite and documented its fragments, measured a 2×2-cm divot in the walkway formed by the meteorite’s impact, and recovered a subset of the fragments to become part of the University of Alberta Meteorite Collection.
The university released a series of photos from Herd’s documentation.
Photo credit: University of Alberta
Velaidum and Herd collected a total of about 95 grams of fragments of the meteorite from the crash site.
Photo credit: University of Alberta
Photo credit: University of Alberta
Photo credit: University of Alberta
Photo credit: University of Alberta
“Analysis confirmed the samples to be from an ordinary chondrite, the most common type of space rock that strikes this planet,” CBC News reported.
“Herd said the meteorites typically enter the atmosphere travelling at around 60,000 km/h [37,300 mph] before slowing down to terminal velocity. He said the rock that struck at Velaidum’s home was probably traveling at least 200 km/h [125 mph] by the time it made impact…
“`It’s from the asteroid belt…between Mars and Jupiter, so it’s come a long way,’ Herd said.”