If you think your week was weird, imagine sitting in your living room when a rock older than the planet crashes through your roof. That’s exactly what happened to a man in McDonough, Georgia, in June—and now scientists say the space rock that tore through his HVAC system is at least a few hundred million years older than Earth itself.
The McDonough Meteorite, officially named by University of Georgia researchers, formed around 4.56 billion years ago, according to planetary geologist Scott Harris. For context, Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
“This particular meteor…has a long history before it made it to the ground,” Harris told UGA News, explaining that it originated from a group of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, likely the result of a colossal breakup 470 million years ago.
Meteorite That Hit Atlanta House Is Hundreds of Millions of Years Older Than Earth
Before its rude arrival in suburban Atlanta, the meteor blazed into the atmosphere at “cosmic velocity,” lighting up skies across the Southeast in a daylight fireball. The chunk that made it through was roughly the size of a cherry tomato, but it still carried the energy of a close-range gunshot.
It punched through the roof, rattled the homeowner’s floor, and sprayed the living room with what Harris described as “literal dust fragments” from space. The man is still finding specks weeks later.
Of the 50 grams recovered from the house, UGA obtained 23 grams for testing. Under optical and electron microscopes, it appeared as an L-type ordinary chondrite, essentially a stony relic that formed in an oxygen-rich environment billions of years ago before drifting aimlessly throughout the solar system. Harris calls meteorites like this “time capsules,” because they carry snapshots of the universe from before planets were even a thing.
The McDonough Meteorite is only the 27th recovered in Georgia’s history, and just the sixth-ever witnessed as it fell. That rarity makes it a scientific treasure, but it’s also a reminder that Earth’s celestial dodgeball game is ongoing. “One day there will be…something large to hit and create a catastrophic situation,” Harris warned. Studying minor impacts like this helps researchers prepare for bigger ones.
UGA will store the meteorite for continued analysis, while other fragments will go on display at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville. For now, McDonough holds bragging rights as the ZIP code where a rock older than our planet decided to end its 4.56-billion-year journey—right in someone’s living room.
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