A meteorite that tore through the roof of a home in McDonough, Georgia, earlier this year could date back to a time before Earth was even formed, according to scientists at the University of Georgia.
On July 26, residents across several southeastern U.S. states witnessed an extraordinary daytime fireball streak across the sky — so bright that even satellites in orbit detected it. The blazing object, a fragment of an ancient asteroid, survived the fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere before smashing through a house roof and leaving a dent in the wooden floor just 4 meters (14 feet) from a startled occupant.
Scientists have now confirmed that 23 grams of the recovered rock — officially named the McDonough Meteorite — is a Low Metal (L) ordinary chondrite. This type of space rock is among the oldest known in the solar system, with an estimated age of about 4.56 billion years. That would make it slightly older than our planet itself.
“This meteorite has a remarkable history that stretches back billions of years before arriving in McDonough,” said Scott Harris, a researcher at the University of Georgia. “Understanding its origins means studying its composition and figuring out which asteroid family it came from.”
According to Harris, the meteorite likely originated from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Evidence suggests it could be linked to the catastrophic breakup of a much larger asteroid roughly 470 million years ago, an event that may have nudged it onto a collision course with Earth.
Further analysis of the meteorite’s structure and details of its atmospheric entry will be published later this year. Fragments of the McDonough Meteorite are also set to go on display at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, giving the public a rare chance to see a rock that has journeyed through both space and time to reach our planet.
