Joe Velaidum can’t help but wonder what could have happened if he’d lingered outside his front door for just a couple of minutes longer before taking his dogs for a walk.
The timing of their departure that day last July proved lucky. Just seconds later, a meteorite would plummet onto the front walkway of Velaidum’s home in Marshfield, Prince Edward Island, shattering on impact with a reverberating smack.
“The shocking thing for me is that I was standing right there a couple of minutes right before this impact,” Velaidum told CBC News.
“If I’d have seen it, I probably would’ve been standing right there, so it probably would’ve ripped me in half.”
An Island homeowner captured what’s believed to be a first: the sight and sound of a meteorite striking the earth. CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin speaks with Chris Herd, the meteorite collection curator at the University of Alberta, about this rare rock discovery.
Luckier still, his home security camera caught both video and audio of the meteorite’s crash landing.
Scientists believe it could be the first time that both sound and visuals of a meteorite’s strike have ever been recorded.
“It’s not anything we’ve ever heard before. From a science perspective, it’s new,” Chris Herd, the University of Alberta’s meteorite collection curator, told CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin.
“The meteorite itself we’ve been able to investigate since then, thanks to the owners.”
The Charlottetown Meteorite
When Velaidum returned home from his walk and discovered an unusual dark debris all over his walkway and lawn, he checked the camera footage and was shocked to see the mini explosion that took place in the exact spot he’d been standing earlier.
A friend advised him that the object could have been a meteorite, so he began collecting samples of the debris.
Some of those samples, about seven grams’ worth, were sent to Herd in Edmonton.
“Upon examination of photos of the fragments, Herd confirmed the discovery was, in fact, a meteorite. By chance, he had planned a family trip to Prince Edward Island a mere 10 days after the fall; the trip now included a diversion to check the space where the meteorite landed,” reads a news release sent Monday from the University of Alberta.
Between Velaidum and Herd, about 95 grams of fragments were collected from the crash site in total.
Analysis confirmed the samples to be from an ordinary chondrite, the most common type of space rock that strikes this planet.
Fittingly, the sample has been named the Charlottetown Meteorite — Marshfield is located just east of P.E.I.’s capital city.
Herd said the meteorites typically enter the atmosphere travelling at around 60,000 km/h before slowing down to terminal velocity. He said the rock that struck at Velaidum’s home was probably travelling at least 200 km/h by the time it made impact.
Scientists can sometimes observe a meteorite heating up into a “fireball” as it enters the atmosphere, said Herd, and they leave physical evidence and damage behind when they hit a structure.
It’s from the asteroid belt… between Mars and Jupiter, so it’s come a long way.– Chris Herd, University of Alberta
But as far as his research has found, there has never been recorded audio from such a collision with a man-made object.
“It’s really awesome. It’s actually the first and only meteorite ever found on the Island, and what a way to make that discovery,” Herd said. “Every time that this happens, it’s a new sample from space. It’s from the asteroid belt… between Mars and Jupiter, so it’s come a long way.”
For Velaidum — aside from counting his lucky stars that the sky did not literally fall on his head — thinking about the odds of a meteorite travelling so far just to land on his doorstep is mind-bending.
“How does one interpret that, except… with wonder and with awe?”