When Joe Velaidum and his partner, Laura Kelly, stepped outside one July afternoon in Prince Edward Island, Canada, to walk their dogs, they didn’t expect to encounter anything unusual. However, upon returning home, they were startled to find their walkway covered in scattered debris.
“At first, we didn’t know what caused it,” Velaidum recalls. Initially, he thought something had fallen off the roof and began cleaning up the gray, dusty material. Kelly’s parents, who lived nearby, mentioned hearing a loud bang and suggested it might have been a meteorite strike. After reviewing security footage from his home, Velaidum confirmed they were right.
Experts believe the meteorite strike marks the first time the full sound of a meteorite hitting Earth has been recorded on video. Chris Herd, a professor and curator of the meteorite collection at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, explains that this recording is unique because it captures both the visual impact of the rock and the sound simultaneously.
Velaidum expressed his disbelief, noting that only minutes earlier, he had been standing in the very spot where the meteorite struck the walkway. “Had I stayed in that spot just a minute or two longer, I would’ve certainly been struck, and probably killed,” he says. The meteorite hit the ground with tremendous force, leaving a small dent in the walkway.
Meteorites travel at speeds ranging from 25,000 mph to 160,000 mph as they enter Earth’s atmosphere, according to the American Meteor Society.
Velaidum promptly reported the incident to the University of Alberta’s Meteorite Reporting System. Herd later collected samples of the debris, confirming that it was indeed a meteorite strike. The meteorite was classified as an ordinary chondrite, one of the most common types, composed of small spherical grains of silicate minerals. Herd suspects it came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where it likely broke apart during its journey through Earth’s atmosphere.
While approximately 48 tons of meteorite material fall to Earth each day, the chances of it hitting a person are extremely slim. Meteorites are more likely to land in water due to Earth’s surface being 71% covered by oceans.
Reflecting on the event, Velaidum admits he initially became cautious, frequently glancing upward whenever he went outside. However, as he processed the experience, he came to see it as a reminder of the insignificance of personal concerns on the grand scale of the universe. “It’s a tiny event in the cosmic scheme of things, but it’s an eye-opener,” he says.
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