For possibly the first time ever, a meteorite has been captured on video and audio as it struck the Earth, just outside one man’s home.
Joe Velaidum, of Marshfield, Prince Edward Island, Canada, was standing outside his home last July, before setting off for a walk with his dog. If he had lingered a little longer, he may have become the second person in history to have been confirmed to be hit by a meteorite.
“It is surreal to think about just rare and how close this encounter was. I was standing right at the point of impact, just minutes prior,” Velaidum told Compass Media.
“My partner Laura and I decided to take the dogs for a quick walk. There was nothing unusual about that at all. Except that I stopped on the walkway to move a dog leash because the landscapers were scheduled to come and mow the lawn later that day, and the dog leash was on the grass. So I thought I would help. I never stop in that spot.”
“In retrospect, if I had stayed in that exact spot for just a minute or two longer, I would certainly have been hit by a meteor and probably would have been killed. So, when I was innocently moving that dog lead, a meteor was hurling towards me.”
Fortunately, Velaidum and his dogs were clear of the area when the meteorite struck, and he did not know anything was up until he returned from his walk and found strange dark debris on the floor. Checking his door camera, he found that there was footage of the moment the debris was deposited, and it looked an awful lot like a meteor impact. Astonishingly, in several frames of the video before impact, you can see the meteorite falling to Earth.
After Laura’s father suggested that the small explosion could be a meteorite impact, Velaidum diligently collected samples of the debris, sending around 7 grams (0.24 ounces) of it to Chris Herd, the University of Alberta’s meteorite collection curator.
Though the Earth doesn’t make a fuss about it, every day it is bombarded with around 44,000 kilograms (48.5 tons) of meteoritic material. Most of it burns up harmlessly in our atmosphere, but some material does make it to the ground, where its composition can be studied. Looking at the samples sent to him, and further samples he and Velaidum collected from the area, Herd determined that they were chondrite, the oldest known rocks whose components formed during the birth of the Solar System.
“It’s mind blowing to think that this hunk or rock travelled hundreds of millions of miles and landed on our front doorstep where I was standing, exactly, a few minutes prior,” Velaidum added.
While the most common type of meteorite, the overall incident is extremely rare. Why? Well, it may just be the only time we have captured video and audio of a meteorite hitting the ground.
“It’s not anything we’ve ever heard before,” Herd told CBC News. “From a science perspective, it’s new.”
“No other meteorite fall has been documented like this, complete with sound,” he added in a University of Alberta statement. “It adds a whole new dimension to the natural history of the Island.”
According to Herd, the meteorite was likely traveling around 60,000 kilometers per hour (37,282 miles per hour) as it entered the atmosphere, before slowing down to a terminal velocity of around 200 kilometers per hour (124 miles per hour) before hitting the ground. Luckily for Velaidum, that came a few minutes after he had left the area.
Source Link: For Possibly The First Time Ever, A Meteorite Was Captured Hitting The Ground On Video And Audio
