How Does a Space Rock Sound When It Hits the Ground?
The first-ever meteorite to land in P.E.I. is caught on camera and makes auditory history — now it’s at the U of A
By Sarah Vernon
January 28, 2025 •
Finding a piece of rock from outer space in front of their Marshfield, P.E.I. home — a first such discovery in the province’s history — wasn’t on Laura Kelly and her partner Joe’s bingo cards that day in July 2024 when they returned from an afternoon walk.
On their walkway was a curious star-shaped pattern of grey dust. Not knowing what it was, the pair took photos and then swept it away. A check of their security camera footage, however, showed an astonishing sight: the exact moment a rock came out of the sky and landed on their path, scattering grey dust and fragments in a spot where Joe was standing only minutes earlier.
Blink and you’ll miss it: the rock can only be seen in a couple frames of the video, which indicates its high speed, but the exploding dust and sound was undeniable to Laura’s dad, who lives nearby. He heard the impact and then watched the footage.
With the help of Laura’s dad, they recovered about seven grams of the rock, returning to pick up more samples in the coming days using a vacuum and magnet. They also connected with Chris Herd, professor in the U of A’s Faculty of Science and curator of its U of A’s Meteorite Collection, via the Meteorite Reporting System.
Herd examined photos of the fragments and confirmed the discovery was a meteorite.
Fragments of the Charlottetown Meteorite were collected by Laura and Joe and later given to the U of A’s Chris Herd, professor of earth & atmospheric sciences for the U of A’s Meteorite Collection.
Photo courtesy of the University of Alberta Meteorite Collection
By chance, Herd had planned a family trip to P.E.I. 10 days after the impact — the trip now included a diversion to Laura and Joe’s place. With the help of some family members, Herd documented the fragments, measured a divot in the walkway formed by the impact and recovered a subset of the fragments to become part of the U of A’s Meteorite Collection. Analysis shows that the newly named Charlottetown Meteorite is an ordinary chondrite, formed when various types of dust and small grains brought together by gravity in the early solar system to form asteroids — features that help to explain why it broke apart as it hit the ground.
“As the first and only meteorite from the province of P.E.I., the Charlottetown Meteorite announced its arrival in a spectacular way,” Herd says. “This is likely the only time the sound of a meteorite hitting the earth has ever been recorded. It adds a whole new dimension to the natural history of the province.”
Laura adds that she and her family are “in awe that a piece from ancient interstellar space could travel millions of miles and land, literally, on our doorstep.”
Go Deeper
U of A Meteorite Collection
Canada’s largest collection of its kind, the University of Alberta Meteorite Collection in the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, houses over 1,800 specimens, including pristine, frozen samples of the Tagish Lake, B.C. meteorite, iron meteorites associated with the impact crater in Whitecourt, Alta., and specimens from hundreds of other locations in the world. Meteorites reveal much about the earth’s origins and the conditions that existed during the formation of the solar system, making this collection a tremendously valuable scientific teaching and research resource.
Is Your Rock a Meteorite?
Visit the University of Alberta’s Meteorite Reporting System, where you can use a list of questions to help figure out if the rock you have found is a meteorite. Upload photos of it for review by an expert.
We at New Trail welcome your comments. Robust debate and criticism are encouraged, provided it is respectful. We reserve the right to reject comments, images or links that attack ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation; that include offensive language, threats, spam; are fraudulent or defamatory; infringe on copyright or trademarks; and that just generally aren’t very nice. Discussion is monitored and violation of these guidelines will result in comments being disabled.
We at New Trail welcome your comments. Robust debate and criticism are encouraged, provided it is respectful. We reserve the right to reject comments, images or links that attack ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation; that include offensive language, threats, spam; are fraudulent or defamatory; infringe on copyright or trademarks; and that just generally aren’t very nice. Discussion is monitored and violation of these guidelines will result in comments being disabled.