The remains of the meteorite. Image Credit: Laura Kelly
Security camera footage captured the moment a meteorite slammed into the ground outside a home in Canada.
For the first time, a CCTV camera has recorded the precise moment that a meteorite struck the surface of the Earth - capturing not only footage of the impact, but also the sound of it as well.
The strike occurred in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island back in July 2024 and was first discovered when the homeowners found debris on their garden path after they returned from walking their dogs.
"We noticed the walkway was just completely covered with black debris, rock, sand, and we had no idea what it was, so we started cleaning it up," said homeowner Joe Velaidum.
It wasn't until their neighbor told them that he had heard a loud noise outside their house while they'd been away that they deided to check their CCTV camera footage to see if it had picked anything up.
Incredibly, it had recorded the exact moment that a meteorite had slammed into their garden.
What's more, Velaidum himself had been standing at that exact spot just moments before it hit.
"We noticed that I stopped at a certain spot and then about two minutes later, there was this massive crash that landed exactly where I had stopped," he said. "It was two minutes away from killing me, absolutely. It landed right between my legs, where I was standing."
According to Chris Herd, curator of the University of Alberta's meteorite collection, the object that fell to Earth in this particular case was a chondrite meteorite.
"As the first and only meteorite from the province of P.E.I., the Charlottetown meteorite sure announced its arrival in a spectacular way," he said.
"No other meteorite fall has been documented like this, complete with sound."
"It adds a whole new dimension to the natural history of the island."
You can check out the footage of the meteorite strike for yourself in the video below.
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