Tellus Science Museum adds rare recently fallen Georgia meteorite to collection
(Tellus Science Museum)
JUNCTION CITY, Ga. - Georgia's Tellus Science Museum has a new addition to its collection, and it's one that out of this world.
Late at night on Sept. 26, a meteorite exploded over the small town of Junction City, Georgia -- bursting into a fireball that lit up part of Talbot County's sky.
That night, astronomer Dr. Ed Albin and other meteorite hunters Pat Branch and Carl Dietrich figured out where the piece of space fell, and raced to the scene where they found a small impact crater.
After intense searching, the three men found multiple pieces of the radical rock - the second largest will now be part of Tellus' collection.
"This is very exciting, because finding a meteorite soon after it falls is a very rare occasion, and it fell here in Georgia," said Tellus Executive Director Jose Santamaria. "And to think – this rock was in space a little over three weeks ago!"
The meteorite is about 219 grams and has been tentatively identified as a chondrite - commonly known as a stony meteorite. Scientists are working to further classify the rock.
So far about a dozen fragments have been found at the site of what's now being tentatively called the Junction City Meteorite's impact crater.
The meteorite was the 27th charted in Georgia and the sixth that people have witnessed fall in the state.