A homemade camera in Canada captured the first sound recording of a meteorite colliding with Earth. The veracity of the video recording, as well as the spatial origin of the rock remains found in a Charlottetown yard, were certified by the University of Alberta.
In July 2024, the owners of a house in the capital of Prince Edward Island, Canada, found a strange mark in their yard. A star-shaped dust scar had appeared without explanation. The pair were not experts in kinetics, but they immediately recognized the shape of an impact. By coincidence, a home surveillance camera pointed exactly to the spot with the footprint.
Upon reviewing the event, they confirmed that a small rock had fallen from the sky; The projectile travels so fast that it cannot be distinguished in the image. One second there is calm in the Canadian neighborhood, and the next, a crunch is heard and a small cloud of debris emerges from the ground. The home’s owners later learned they were the first people to record what a meteorite fall sounds like, according to AP.
Meteorites abundant, but elusive for cameras
After watching the event, the couple collected all the dust and rock near the impact point. In total, using vacuum cleaners and magnets, they gathered seven grams of material. They contacted Chris Herd, curator of the Meteorite Collection at the University of Alberta and professor in the Faculty of Science, to verify the provenance of the remains. After some analysis, Herd confirmed that the object that crashed into his yard was a space rock.
Astronomers estimate that 17,000 small meteorites arrive each year. The vast majority do not usually touch the ground. Many of them disintegrate upon contact with the atmosphere or explode hundreds of meters before touching the surface. Destructive meteorite impacts that extinct species are, for now, only in history books and movies.
It is relatively common to find meteorites on Earth. There are even simple guides so anyone can identify them. As a general rule, rocks that are heavier for their size, attracted to magnets, and whose surface has no bubbles or bumps are more likely to be space rocks. What does not usually happen with such regularity is recording the moment of the crash. Even more unusual is obtaining acoustic information from the impact. So far no other record of sound coming from the collision of a meteorite.
Small meteorites that reach the ground are generally fragments of a larger one that broke up during travel. Although smaller in size, they are not risk-free. On average, space rocks reach an average speed of between 11 and 72 kilometers per second as soon as they enter the atmosphere.
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