Meteorite pieces found by hunters in Michigan after fireball flash
Pieces of the meteor that lit up the sky earlier this week were located by meteorite hunters in Michigan on Thursday.
Larry Atkins and Robert Ward set out to find pieces of the meteor very early in the morning. They found pieces on a frozen lake.
Atkins has been hunting meteorites for 20 years.
Atkins and Ward will be sending one of the pieces they found to the Field Museum. The museum has a lab to test the composition of meteorites. They also have 13,000 meteorite samples, the fourth most of any place in the world.
The United States Geological Survey confirmed the meteor that many spotted in the Chicago area Tuesday night. The meteor happened at around 7:10 p.m., according to USGS. It also caused a magnitude 2 earthquake.
"You can have these echoing blasts in the nighttime sky," said astronomer Mark Hammergren. "And that mass of air pushing down on a wide section of earth is going to cause it to reverberate and produce a signature much like an earthquake."
The asteroid that slammed into Earth's atmosphere was probably traveling at 30,000 mph, and only about 1 to 2 feet wide.
The American Meteor Society received about 200 reports of a "fireball meteor" seen over Illinois and other states.
Many posted on social media after having heard and seen what they described as a meteor in the sky.
People in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Pennsylvania also reported seeing the meteor.
Many may remember the meteor that streaked across the Wisconsin sky last February. That one was about 3 feet wide. It broke apart and landed in Michigan.
Although it is rare, Chicago has seen a meteorite recently. The Alder Planetarium has on display the meteorite that crashed into a home in Olympia Fields in 2003, known as the Park Forest Meteor. It was estimated to be about 6 feet wide as it broke up in Earth's atmosphere.
