A meteorite crashes in front of a house: everything was filmed by its video surveillance camera

The video is rare since it shows the impact on video, with sound, of this celestial body which crashed on the steps of a house while the owners were away, gone to walk their dog. When the couple returned, they discovered the rock fragments scattered across their yard with powdery gray residue. It was by consulting the video surveillance images that they discovered its origin.

Video of a meteorite impact is a first

Totaling approximately 7 grams, the debris was sent for analysis to the University of Alberta. On January 13 in a press release, researchers confirmed the extraterrestrial origin of the object. Even more remarkable: the audio recording of the impact would constitute a world first in the history of meteorite observation.

At the house of CBC NewsProfessor Chris Herd of the University of Alberta explains that the meteorite comes from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Analyzes classify the object as an ordinary chondrite, the most common category of meteorite in space. The rock fragment, equivalent to half a fist, would have impacted the ground at an approximate speed of 200 kilometers per hour with a mark 2 centimeters deep.

When questioned, the couple believed that the fall of this meteorite at this speed could have been fatal. The owners of the premises explain that they left the site of the impact just a few minutes before it fell.

Meteor falls on Earth are common, but recording this impact with image and sound is an extraordinary phenomenon. According to NASA data, approximately 50 tons of meteorite material reaches our planet every day. But as an astrophysicist at Radio Canada pointed out, the majority of impacts take place in oceanic or sparsely populated areas, which limits direct observation.