A rare meteorite nearly hit a man in McDonough, Georgia, but fragments that fell from the sky instead punched through his roof and missed him by 14 feet. The fragments, which are estimated to be over 4.5 billion years old, were recovered from a piece of space rock the size of a cherry tomato.
According to Scott Harris, a planetary geologist at the University of Georgia, who examined the fragments, they belong to a group of asteroids that formed 20 million years before the Earth itself. The meteorite was part of a larger asteroid that broke apart about 470 million years ago.
Most space rocks burn up in the atmosphere, but this one created a loud sound and vibration equivalent to a gunshot upon impact. The resident who lived in the house said he could still find specks of space dust around his living room after the incident.
This is not the first documented case of a meteorite hitting a person. In 1954, a nine-pound meteorite struck a woman named E.H. Hodges in Alabama, but she suffered only painful bruises. The recovered fragments from this case are now being considered for naming as the McDonough Meteorite, due to their recent discovery in Georgia.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/science/meteor-georgia-older-than-earth.html