Scientists at the University of Wisconsin announced today they have studied meteorites recovered at an undisclosed location in western Wisconsin from Wednesday’s night’s super-bright fireball meteor. The streak of light, which ended in an explosion, was one of the brightest fireballs widely observed in recent times and presumably produced a reasonably large quantity of meteorites on the ground.
“Samples have been located in southwestern Wisconsin,” says John Valley of the University of Wisconsin’s Geosciences Department. “We’ve been studying a sample that was brought in by a landowner west of Madison.”
But large chunks of the space rock may not have been found yet. “The piece we have is very small,” says Valley, “about the size of a peanut. It is on the outside a dull black, matte finish, which is the fusion crust from when it became very hot falling through the atmosphere.
One news report mentioned what would seem to be chondrules inside the meteorite, described as “snow white crystals about the size of a pea, in a matrix that is gray.”
Astronomy will bring you more breaking news on this amazing meteorite fall throughout the days to come.