A Canadian man captured on video last year a meteor hitting the ground with a sound, possibly the first time in human history.
According to a report by the National Public Radio (NPR) on January 16, Joe Velaidum, a resident of Prince Edward Island, Canada, was out walking his dog with his wife one afternoon in July last year when a small meteor hit the brick walkway in front of their home.
Upon returning home, they noticed gray stone debris scattered on the walkway, appearing as if something had fallen from the sky and shattered. Velaidum initially thought it was something falling from the roof.
However, when Velaidum’s nearby in-laws mentioned hearing a loud noise, possibly from the meteor hitting the ground, he decided to check the footage captured by his home surveillance camera.
Velaidum later found that the surveillance camera recorded a small meteor hitting his home walkway, emitting a loud noise. Experts say this may be the first time a meteor hitting the ground has been both visually and audibly recorded.
Velaidum said he was lucky because he had been standing on the walkway hit by the meteor just a few minutes prior. “If I had stayed there a few more minutes, I would definitely have been hit, possibly killed by the meteor.”
He added that the force of the meteor hitting the ground was strong enough to leave a small dent on the walkway.
Data from the American Meteor Society shows that meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere travel at speeds ranging from 25,000 to 160,000 miles per hour (40,000 to 256,000 kilometers per hour).
Velaidum later reported the incident to the Meteorite Reporting System at the University of Alberta in Canada.
Professor Chris Herd, curator of the meteorite collection at the University of Alberta, conducted an examination of the meteorite fragment samples, confirming it was indeed a meteorite impact event. He had never heard a sound like that from a meteorite hitting the ground before.
Herd told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), “We’ve never heard a sound like this before. From a scientific perspective, this is new. Since then, we’ve been able to investigate the meteorite itself, thanks to the owner of the meteorite.”
Herd believes that the meteorite came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is the size of a golf ball to a baseball, a common type of meteorite known as a chondrite, which is one of the most common types of meteorites to hit Earth. These meteorites are composed of chondrules or small, granular silicate minerals such as olivine and pyroxene.
NASA points out that at least 40 tons of meteoric material fall to Earth every day. Herd stated that the chances of a meteorite hitting a person are low, as they are more likely to land in bodies of water since 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by water.
Velaidum told NPR that the meteorite impact event initially made him more cautious, always looking up when he goes out. But after some reflection, the experience made him rethink his priorities and what truly matters in life.
He said, “When we are full of ourselves, we think our lives are so important, but these cosmic events put our minor worries into perspective.”