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On January 16, 2018, there were sightings of a fireball in the sky over Michigan in the United States.
The next day, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed that it was a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere.
At the time, the strong “ boom ” and subsequent earthquake it caused about 40 miles from Detroit was reported to register at 2.0 on the Richter scale, but to the USGS and NASA, it didn’t seem that big of a a deal.
Locals disagreed and 911 emergency lines were flooded with calls.
911 asked everyone to stop calling and calm down.
The huge flash of light was captured on a dash camera:
Other clips from the area’s security cameras flash:
With all the disaster movies out there, you can see why people panicked.
It has been more than two years since the meteorite fell to earth, and although scientists were ambivalent about its entry, they were quite excited that some of them managed to survive the journey through Earth’s atmosphere.
According to CNN, it is 12 million years old and contains more than 2,600 organic compounds, new research has revealed.
“Weather radar is meant to detect hail and rain,” study lead author Philipp Heck, curator of the Field Museum of Chicago and associate professor at the University of Chicago, said in a statement.
Image: Field Museum
“These meteorite pieces fall within that size range, so the weather radar helped show the meteorite’s position and speed. This means that we were able to find it very quickly. “
Earth’s native elements can change a meteor’s chemical makeup, but because it was collected so quickly, within two days, it retained its integrity.
The tiny piece of meteorite pictured above was found by Robert Ward, sitting on the frozen surface of Strawberry Lake, which is located near Hamburg, Michigan.
“This meteorite is special because it fell on a frozen lake and was quickly recovered. It was very pristine. We could see that the minerals weren’t much altered and we later found that it contained a rich inventory of extraterrestrial organic compounds, ”Heck said.
“These types of organic compounds were likely delivered to the early Earth by meteorites and may have contributed to the ingredients of life.”
Here’s what scientists, based in over 24 different institutions, have learned since 2018.
The meteorite took 12 million years to make the journey to our planet after it separated from its parent asteroid, which formed about 4.5 billion years ago, just about 20 million years after our system was formed. solar.
Here is Jennika Greer, a PhD student at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago, who worked on the studio:
“This meteorite exhibits a high diversity of organics, as if anyone were interested in studying organics, this is not normally the type of meteor they would ask to look at,” Greer said.
“But because there was so much excitement surrounding it, everyone wanted to apply their technique to it, so we have an unusually complete dataset for a single meteorite.”
Go back to Heck to understand why the results matter:
“The fact that this ordinary chondrite meteorite was rich in organics lends support to the hypothesis that meteorites played an important role in delivering organic compounds to the early Earth,” Heck said.
“Meteorites fell on our planet throughout Earth’s history even before life formed and possibly brought some of the building blocks for life on Earth.”
Scientists say they are looking for more meteorites.
That’s fine for me, as long as they’re only 5mm.
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