0.1-Pound Meteorite Struck Ontario Nissan Pathfinder, Marking 3rd Documented Car Hit
Updated
Updated · Jalopnik · Aug 5
0.1-Pound Meteorite Struck Ontario Nissan Pathfinder, Marking 3rd Documented Car Hit
2 articles · Updated · Jalopnik · Aug 5
Summary
A 0.1-pound chondrite hit Yvonne Garchinski's Nissan Pathfinder windshield in Grimsby, Ontario, after a Sept. 25, 2009 fall over the town.
Scientists later identified it as a 4.6 billion-year-old fragment that had entered the atmosphere at about 47,000 mph; other pieces landed nearby without causing damage.
The Grimsby strike appears to be only the third properly documented case of a meteorite hitting a car, after a 3.9-pound stone hit a Pontiac in Illinois in 1938 and a 26.5-pound meteorite smashed a Chevrolet Malibu in New York in 1992.
NASA says more than 100 tons of space dust reach Earth daily but burn up, while larger objects that survive to the ground arrive only about once a year, making a direct hit on a car exceptionally rare.