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Meteorite from 'once-in-a-lifetime' Great Salt Lake crash on display at University of Utah
KSL News • • general
Key Points:
- James Karner, principal investigator of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites, witnessed a meteorite fall for the first time on August 13, 2022, when a meteorite crashed near the Great Salt Lake, creating a loud boom heard across Salt Lake Valley.
- A 774-gram fragment of the meteorite, the largest recovered from the event, is now on display at the University of Utah's Sutton Building as part of an exhibit highlighting Utah's second known witnessed "fall" meteorite.
- The meteorite, classified as an ordinary chondrite, shares composition with most meteorites but is scientifically significant because its pre-impact orbit was tracked back to the asteroid belt, linking it to a specific asteroid family.
- Advances in Doppler radar technology allowed researchers to pinpoint where meteorite fragments landed, leading to the recovery of 3.2 kilograms of material from the event, with more fragments likely still undiscovered in the area.
- The exhibit serves to educate the public on this rare cosmic event, emphasizing the meteorite's ancient origin—about 4.56 billion years old—and its importance to Utah's natural history.
