A Meteorite Older Than The Earth Itself Crashed Into A House This Summer
On June 26, 2025, a meteorite fragment barreled through space and crashed through the roof of someone’s home in Georgia.
After researchers analyzed the space rock, they determined that it happened to be older than the Earth itself. It formed around 4.56 billion years ago, which was 20 million years before the Earth.
People in the southeastern United States who witnessed what they thought was a fireball streaking across the sky reported the sight to the authorities.
According to the University of Georgia (UGA), the meteorite was traveling at a speed of “10 football fields in one second.”
Those who didn’t see the meteorite heard the loud boom it created at impact. One Georgia resident watched the space rock tear through his roof and land on the floor. It was about the size of a cherry tomato and left a half-inch crater on the floor.
The resident is reportedly still finding meteorite dust in his home. Researchers collected the fragments from his house and studied them to determine their age and composition.
“This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough, and in order to totally understand that, we actually have to examine what the rock is and determine what group of asteroids it belongs to,” said Scott Harris, a researcher in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ department of geology.
The space rock has been named the McDonough Meteorite. It was an ordinary chondrite, which is the most common type of meteorite recovered from Earth. It formed about 4.56 billion years ago, making it older than the Earth, which is about 4.54 billion years old.
Harris stated that the meteorite belonged to a group of asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
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Now, researchers think they can connect the group to a breakup of a large asteroid about 470 million years ago.
The McDonough Meteorite is the 27th meteorite to be recovered in Georgia. It is only the sixth that people have actually seen falling from the sky.
Sightings of falling meteorites used to be expected once every few decades, but they have become much more common in recent years, thanks to the help of modern technology and public awareness.
Scientists can now learn more about meteors and how they break up in the Earth’s atmosphere. By better understanding meteorites, they can prevent larger and more dangerous space rocks from fragmenting before crashing to the Earth’s surface and potentially hurting someone.
Currently, the McDonough Meteorite is being stored at the University of Georgia for further analysis. Other pieces of the rock that fell in the area will be displayed at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia.
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