All articles tagged with #meteorite
A bright fireball meteor was observed over Michigan around 8:47 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 13, 2026), with unconfirmed reports that fragments may have fallen into the Great Lakes (Lake Huron or Lake Ontario). Michigan Storm Chasers circulated sightings and videos, while the piece also explains meteor terminology and offers USGS guidance on identifying meteorites if found.
Daniel Barringer, a Philadelphia mining engineer, bet his fortune that Arizona’s Meteor Crater hid a massive iron meteorite beneath the floor and spent 26 years drilling for it. He never found the treasure, and the meteorite was largely vaporized on impact, a reality science would prove later. The crater became the first proven meteorite impact site, the Barringer family still owns it, and today Meteor Crater operates as a private, profitable tourist site built around the very story of the supposed fortune.
A roughly 1-kilogram meteorite fragment crashed through a New Jersey home's roof after a daytime fireball, later identified as a CM-type carbonaceous chondrite rich in extraterrestrial amino acids and brine minerals. The pristine sample preserves subsurface material and supports the idea that meteorites delivered organic compounds and water-related chemistry to early Earth, potentially aiding the origin of life.
A Hillsborough, New Jersey meteorite—a primitive CM carbonaceous chondrite that fell in 2024—contains hundreds of amino acids, the majority not known to occur naturally on Earth, preserved in salty brines within the asteroid’s minerals. The finding highlights complex abiotic organic chemistry in a water-altered asteroid and underscores the value of rapid recovery to study pristine extraterrestrial material.
A Martian meteorite found in Algeria (NWA 13441) has been dated to about 1.27 billion years old, filling a nearly 2-billion-year gap in Mars’ geological history and offering clues about volcanic activity and deep Martian reservoirs that remained relatively unaltered in that era.
A 1.27‑billion-year‑old Martian meteorite found in Algeria (NWA 13441) blends shergottite rock with neodymium‑rich material typical of chondrites, suggesting Mars preserves ancient mantle components. This unexpected combination helps fill a vast gap in Mars’ geologic record (about 600 million to 2.4–2.5 billion years ago) and points to a previously unsampled Martian reservoir between enriched and depleted shergottite sources. Ongoing isotope analyses aim to link NWA 13441 to other early Martian rocks and shed light on ancient magmatic and volcanic activity on the Red Planet.
After a July fireball over New Zealand’s North Island, Fireballs Aotearoa and citizen scientists traced a possible strewn field and recovered four meteorite fragments totaling 75 g, including an 8 g piece found by Steve Wyn-Harris; a 39 g fragment was found the next day, followed by two more, all confirmed as meteorites and slated for naming and analysis, likely ordinary chondrites from an asteroid belt and possibly linked to NZ’s first meteorite near Masterton in 1863.
Three documented cases show that space rocks can and have hit cars: a 1938 3.9‑lb meteorite punched through Edward McCain’s Pontiac in Benld, IL; the 1992 Peekskill incident saw a 26.5‑lb iron chondrite smash Michelle Knapp’s Malibu, later becoming a museum piece and meteorite sale; and in 2009 a 0.1‑lb chondrite shattered a Nissan Pathfinder’s windshield in Grimsby, Ontario. NASA notes such events are extremely rare—Earth is peppered daily with space dust, intact meteorites reach the surface about once per year, and the odds of hitting a populated area are exceedingly small.
Scientists report a garnet-rich rock fragment inside Martian meteorite NWA 8171, providing the first evidence garnet may have formed in Mars’ crust and hinting at a new rock type or metamorphic process on the Red Planet; while Martian origin is supported by pyroxene chemistry and oxygen isotope signatures, confirming it will require direct isotope analysis of the garnet-bearing piece.
Amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe spotted a 15-km-wide pit near Lake Marsal on Google Maps, which geologists confirmed in 2025 is a 390-million-year-old meteorite impact crater now named Uhaachatik Crater after the Ekuanitshit Innu council; evidence includes zircon, shatter cones, and melt rock, with findings set to be presented at the Meteoritical Society congress, highlighting citizen science and Indigenous collaboration.
An amateur in Quebec spotted a circular feature on Google Maps that led scientists to confirm Uhackatik, a roughly 15.5-mile-wide meteorite impact crater dating to about 390 million years ago in Quebec’s Côte-Nord. Fieldwork uncovered shatter cones and impact-melt rock, making it one of the largest crater discoveries in recent years; researchers plan to present results at the Meteoritical Society meeting.
An amateur astronomer spotted unusual terrain on Google Maps near Lake Marsal in Quebec. Western University geologist Gordon Osinski provisionally confirmed the site as Uhackatik, a ~25 km wide crater about 390 million years old, with preserved shock metamorphic effects and shatter cones. The find isn’t yet peer‑reviewed and will be presented at the Meteoritical Society meeting; if confirmed, it would be among Earth’s largest recently discovered craters and offers clues about meteor impacts on lunar and Martian bodies, with comparisons to Kamestastin in Labrador and potential relevance to Artemis‑era lunar science.
A Hillsborough, New Jersey meteorite that crashed into a home in 2024 contains amino acids and other organics and has been identified as a rare CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite; NASA scientists say its complex organic chemistry supports the idea that life’s building blocks were delivered to early Earth by ancient asteroids, with findings published in Science Advances.
Amateur astronomer Joël Lapointe spotted a circular depression on Google Maps in northern Quebec, sparking investigation that led scientists to confirm it as a 390-million-year-old meteorite impact crater named Uhackatik, following evidence of shatter cones and impact melt rocks. The crater, about 25 km wide, predates dinosaurs and offers a window into early terrestrial life. A 2025 expedition and collaboration with the Ekuanitshit Innu council culminated in naming the site and solidifying Canada’s newest crater discovery since 2010, illustrating how citizen observations can contribute to deep-time geology.
A new study identifies Chicxulub’s impactor as a rare carbon monoxide–bearing chondrite, a meteorite type comprising about 5% of samples. While this confirms the asteroid theory for the dinosaurs’ extinction, researchers say atmospheric debris—not sulfur in the meteorite—was the main killer, and trace elements in a KT boundary clay point to an origin from the outer asteroid belt near Jupiter or the distant solar system.