Sound of meteorite striking Earth remarkably caught on doorbell camera: ‘It was just pulverized’
It’s a different kind of rock music.
Doorbell cameras aren’t just for busting home invaders and porch pirates. A Ring camera captured the sound of a meteorite crash-landing near a house in Prince Edward Island, Canada, marking the first time this interstellar noise had been recorded alongside video footage.
While the clip was filmed on July 25, 2024, this was the first time it had been released to the public.
Joe Velaidum and Laura Kelly had just returned home from walking their dogs when they noticed a peculiar star-shaped dust pile near their door, the National Post reported.
Hoping to shed light on the origin of the debris, the couple checked their doorbell camera, which showed a space rock plummeting from the sky and hitting the brick wall next to their driveway, Jam Press reported.
The impact kicked up a plume of dust while the cam’s audio captured the noise of the not-so-deep impact, which sounded similar to shattering dishware or cracking ice.
The couple subsequently gathered as much debris from the disintegrated projectile as possible and sent it to Chris Herd, curator of the University of Alberta’s meteorite collection, for analysis.
He later visited their home to collect more samples.
Herd confirmed that they originated from an “ordinary chondrite,” the most common type of meteorite which is comprised of nickel and iron, among other elements.
He believed that the specimen came from an asteroid belt “between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter” and broke off — possibly millions of years ago — before circumnavigating the sun and arriving on Earth last summer.
Herd said the impact was significant because, as far as he knows, it was the first space rock to be recorded on video and audio and also the first documented meteorite strike in the region.
He added that because it his a walkway instead of grass, “it was just pulverized.”
While the space rock was originally traveling around 37,000 miles per hour — 50 times the speed of sound — when it permeated the atmosphere, it would have slowed to about 124 m.p.h. by the time it reached Velaidium’s house.
Still, that would be more than enough to either obliterate or maim anyone in its path.
“If that hit you going 200 kilometers per hour (124 m.p.h.), that would definitely hurt, if not kill you,” Herd said.
In fact, Velaidum counted his (perhaps literal) lucky stars that he’d survived, given that he’d been standing in that exact spot moments earlier collecting his dog’s leashes from the lawn.
“In retrospect, if I had stayed in that spot for just two minutes longer, I would have been hit by that meteorite,” said the relieved Canuck.
