Canadian homeowners returned home in July 2024 and found a star-shaped pattern of grey dust spotted on a walkway in front of their home on Prince Edward Island.
Curious about the dust the homeowners checked the video footage from their security camera and saw an astounding moment - a rock that appeared to be a meteorite falling from space and crash landing on their home's walkway, said scientists from the University of Alberta who released their findings from the crash earlier this week.
Footage from the Ring doorbell camera shows an idyllic lush setting framed by the security camera for roughly five seconds when suddenly something appears in the frame and crashes into what appears to be the home's walkway on the side of a stone entranceway.
The crash sounds like glass breaking or a pot falling as the meteorite hits the walkway. University of Alberta science professor Chris Herd said this is the first time the sound and image of a meteor falling has been documented on video.
"No other meteorite fall has been documented like this, complete with sound," Herd said in a statement. "It adds a whole new dimension to the natural history of the Island."
Herd - who is also curator of the university's meteorite collection - arrived at the scene 10 days after the possible meteorite crash to document the origin of the fragments found by the homeowners. They picked up 7 grams of the rock from the grass next to the walkway and retrieved more samples using a vacuum and a magnet. Herd also measured a 2 x 2 cm divot in the walkway formed by the impact.
He found the fragments were indeed a meteorite and said it was an ordinary chondrite with features that helped to explain why it broke apart as it hit the ground.
Meteors can crash on Earth, but it's often a rare occurrence. In May 2023, another homeowner reported a meteorite crashed through her New Jersey roof.
Derrick Pitts, the chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute, told CBS Philadelphia at the time, "For it to actually strike a house, for people to be able to pick up, that's really unusual and has happened very few times in history."
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