By Edgar Garcia
On Feb. 15 at 5:23 PM, a massive sound was heard in the Rio Grande Valley, as a meteorite disintegrated in the atmosphere and its remains landed in McAllen. The now confirmed 1000 lb meteorite impacted the ground and its remains were found days later.
The Meteor is said to have been a fireball and was the last of three meteors hitting the planet over the span of three days with the others landing in France and Norway respectively.
The meteor is said to have been 1000lbs, but despite its weight, may have been less dense than the majority of meteorites that have hit the planet.
Chief Scientist of The South Texas Astronomical Society and Graduate Student at UTRGV Richard Camuccio went into detail on the meteors landing, including on it’s reported size and density.
“No it’s not rare. In fact it’s probably on the least dense side. There’s heavier ones like nickel iron meteors that can be even denser but typically they will reach the ground, like the whole meteor will reach the ground and create an impact about the size of a building or bigger. So this was not big enough to reach the ground, but it still was large enough to have remains that reach the ground in the form of fragments,” Cammucio said.
Professor of Geology at UTRGV Juan Gonzalez spoke on the meteorite and what geology can tell us about it.
“What we learn from meteorites in general is about the timing and formation of the solar system. And all of those meteorites when you measure the age and you can do that with a variety of techniques is that they are consistently dated at 4.5-4.6 Billion years. So that’s one thing we learn. We learn about the timing and formation of the solar nebula as the solar system was forming,” Gonzalez said.
The meteorite’s landing has made headlines across the country but especially in the valley.
Executive Director of Star Society Victor De Los Santos, spoke on how the meteor landing could encourage people to be inspired into science.
“…I’m more than sure that in the valley somewhere there is a little boy or little girl who heard about this, who heard about a rock from space coming through from space through our atmosphere into the RGV maybe near their home and that was the first they ever heard of something like this and they’re going to get excited and they’re going to look into it more, think about it more and maybe grow up to be a geologist or a planetary scientist or a astrophysicists. Or all 3,” De Los Santos said.
For more information about meteorites visit the American Meteorite Society’s website. To learn more about space in general, visit Star Society’s website.
