Updated

Updated · KSL.com · Aug 31

University of Utah Displays 774-Gram Great Salt Lake Meteorite, Utah's 2nd Known Witnessed Fall

Updated

Updated · KSL.com · Aug 31

University of Utah Displays 774-Gram Great Salt Lake Meteorite, Utah's 2nd Known Witnessed Fall

Q: How did a fiery 2022 explosion over Utah unlock a 4.56 billion-year-old secret tied to a specific asteroid family?

The 2022 Utah fireball unlocked that secret because scientists were able to do something rare: recover the meteorite after a well-documented fall and reconstruct its path backward to its source region in the asteroid belt. When the object exploded over northern Utah on Aug. 13, 2022, the blast was widely seen and heard, and its descent was captured through eyewitness reports, video, weather data and Doppler radar. University of Utah researcher James Karner, working with NASA’s Johnson Space Center, used those records to narrow the landing zone on the Great Salt Lake playa and calculate the rock’s pre-impact orbit. Once fragments were recovered, researchers could compare the meteorite’s physical and chemical makeup with the orbital source they had traced. The meteorite was identified as an H5 ordinary chondrite, a common stony type, but the scientific value came from tying that known composition to a specific asteroid family in the main belt. That direct link between a meteorite in hand and an asteroid family is exceptionally uncommon; only about 70 recovered meteorites have been matched that way. The rock itself preserves material formed about 4.56 billion years ago, near the birth of the solar system. In effect, the fiery explosion over Utah gave scientists both the sample and the trajectory needed to connect an ancient meteorite to its parent asteroid lineage, turning a dramatic local event into a rare piece of planetary forensics.

1 articles · Updated · KSL.com · Aug 31

A 774-gram fragment from the August 2022 Great Salt Lake meteorite is now on public display at the University of Utah, where it anchors a new exhibit in the Sutton Building.
The fist-sized piece is the largest recovered from the fall, which boomed over the Salt Lake Valley before landing on the playa along the lake's south shore.
Researchers used Doppler weather radar and NASA support to confirm the fall and narrow the landing zone; dozens of fragments have since been found, totaling 3.2 kilograms.
Although the rock is an ordinary chondrite like 80% to 85% of meteorites, scientists traced its pre-impact orbit back to the asteroid belt—something achieved for only about 70 meteorites.
The exhibit highlights a rare Utah event: a witnessed 'fall' meteorite, only the state's second known case after a 1950 fall near Garland.