Free-falling meteorite grazes the house of two elderly people at 300 km per hour

“We have a map! As in "Pirates of the Caribbean" there is a guide to try to find the meteorite that on the night of February 14 may have fallen in Basilicata , more precisely north of Matera ».

The arrival of the celestial body had been announced in recent days by Prisma , Prima Rete Italiana Studio Meteore e Atmosphere of the National Institute of Astrophysics, on its website. And, before long, the glowing bolide was found . After the "open hunt" for precious fragments, the research has borne the hoped-for results. The meteorite, according to the reconstruction of the researchers, would have fallen vertically to the ground with a speed of about 300 km/h and in the impact chipped a tile of the balcony of a house between Contrada Rondinelle and Contrada Serra Paducci, in the "City of stones ”.

As reported by Prisma in a note, «on the balcony of the home of the parents of Gianfranco and Pino Lossignore, some stones attracted the attention of the two brothers. Also because the elderly parents had heard a loud bang the previous evening coming from outside . Over 70 grams have been recovered so far in 12 major fragments and dozens of smaller fragments .' The material will soon be subjected to detailed analyzes to determine the chemical composition, mineralogy and petrographic characteristics useful for the classification of the newly found meteorite. As explained by Daniele Gardiol, Inaf astronomer of Turin and national coordinator of the Prisma network, «we are dealing with very fresh, uncontaminated material . Meteorites have gone through the approximately 4.5 billion years since the formation of our Solar System almost unchanged and finding one that has just fallen like the one found in Matera helps scientists a lot to reconstruct the stages that led to the formation of planets, including the Earth ». That of San Valentino is the second discovery in Italy since 1959 and after a short time. At the beginning of January 2020, the Cavezzo meteorite was recovered near Modena .

(Unioneonline/vf)