American Meteor Society
AMS Event 2022-2591, a daytime fireball that occurred over Natchez, Mississippi this past Wednesday morning April 27th, 2022 resulted in a meteorite recovery three days later. Reports of booms and bright lights in the sky hit social media Wednesday morning and started flowing into the American Meteor Society’s online fireball tracking tool.
Using the time and location for the event provided by the AMS, amateur fireball researcher Eric Rasmussen looked over NOAA’s Doppler NEXRAD weather radar and saw something suspicious near the time and place of the fireball. A large cloud appeared and then disappeared near the end of the fireball’s path right after the event occurred. This cloud was found in data from three different NEXRAD radar stations.
Rasmussen consulted with NASA Scientist and meteorite expert Marc Fries about the event, and they concluded the NEXRAD data was in fact evidence of meteorites falling to the ground.
The map below illustrates a summary of the meteorite fall and available information. The red and black trajectory is the current AMS trajectory plotted using available witness data and computed by the automated software. The white line is a reconstructed trajectory based on the GLM data, derived from a summary posted by William Cooke at the NASA MEO. The background grid is the result of AMS’s custom radar scanning software, a collaborative work in progress. Red and orange show areas of highest weather volatility. Meteorites for this fall so far have all been found under the red areas indicated in this map.
For more details about the exact location for searching see Marc’s write up on the Mississippi meteorite radar find.
Living just under 300 miles away from the fall area Marc set out as soon as he could and was in the field Saturday. His wife Linda Welzenbach Fries found the first meteorite later that day at 2:45pm. Marc found a second a few hours later. These are the only known meteorites that were recovered before the rain later that night.
Meteorite hunters from around the country have arrived since then and more finds have been made. We were aware of 3 total as of Sunday night and at least 12 meteorite hunters searching. The land is mostly covered in thick woods, so hunters have been focused on public roads and grassy areas near these. The fall likely produced a lot of material based on the radar returns and the number of quick finds found on roads. Unfortunately, most of the land is covered by thick woods, which makes meteorite recovery in these areas almost impossible. Initial visual review of the material suggests the meteorite is a type H ordinary chondrite consisting of at least two lithologies.
Here are some pictures from the field documenting the earliest finds. We will maintain a data table of all know finds and associated information and link it to this fireball event in our database. If you have recovered meteorites from this fall contact Mike Hankey to be listed in the data table.
Work the road edges across the strewn field starting at the small end for better success. Larger fragments are harder to find.
I found a sky rock!
It’s a shame to think that they can fool us so easily The place where they said they found the piece of meteorite coming out of space with all that force but the place is on disturbed. Come on. We’re not that easily fool
I think you have a series of incorrect assumptions that you’re basing your “opinions” upon. We on earth have an atmosphere unlike our moon. Unless they’re massive, (and they rarely are,) meteors seldom leave “impact craters” or “devastation” when they land on earth. They slow and then fall–definitely not with “all that force”–but a small, falling rock that happens to come from outer space, not a thousands-of-kilometers-per-hour projectile that leaves an impact or “disturbs” areas. A relatively large meteorite fell on a woman some years ago, and she reported that it left a bruise.
Hey,
Early this morning between the time of 01:40 to 02:05 I was sitting outside with our family dog name Bella then comes this awesome bright streak streaming across the sky in Tucson, AZ. Then at that moment a bright yellow golden fireball pierced
thru the atmosphere. It was awesome, huge, bright and very cosmic. It felt close as if it was blocks away. This fireball was an intense moment. I had no expectation of seeing a fireball this morning or ever.
Did anyone else have some findings?
See you all later
Marie