Meteorite that crashed into B.C. home gives scientists better look at solar system

A meteorite that put a B.C. woman’s home on the map last year is helping scientists get a better sense of our solar system.

A researcher studying the piece of rock, which crashed through Ruth Hamilton’s roof in October, says the fragment was diverted to the path leading to Golden hundreds of millions of years ago.

Dr. Philip McCausland, an adjunct professor at Western University in London, Ont. and a lead researcher mapping the meteorite’s journey, explains a 4.5-billion-year-old rock collided with something about 470 million years ago, breaking it into fragments and changing the trajectory of some of the pieces.

He tells CityNews this type of meteorite isn’t entirely uncommon. However, what makes it scientifically interesting — aside from the dramatic way it found itself on Hamilton’s pillow, next to where she had just been sleeping — is how well observed by cameras and video it was before it made landfall.

“With meteorite arrivals like this, it’s possible to get a very good handle on what the pathway was through the sky, the trajectory, and to get its initial speed. What speed was it going when it hit the top of the earth’s atmosphere? From that, you can work out what the orbit was before it hit the earth,” he said Monday.

Related: ‘Never been so scared in my life’: B.C. woman’s home damaged by meteorite

McCausland says this meteorite is one of 50 that are known to have this level of information about its arrival. He notes most of the thousands of others around the world have no context.

While researchers were able to identify that the meteorite was likely going to fall in Golden, he admits there was no way to tell it would crash right through the B.C. woman’s ceiling.

“It turns out that Ruth Hamilton got in contact with us at the same time when two different groups — our group at Western and a group at University of Calgary — had independently come to the same conclusion, that this fireball event probably dropped meteorites in and around the Golden area,” he explained.

“She got in contact with us, independent of that from Golden saying, ‘Hey, a meteorite came through my roof,'” McCausland added, noting the coincidence.

He says while the exact landing point couldn’t be predicted, the estimates by his team about the meteorite’s size and mass was pretty much on the money.

McCausland adds the meteorite will give scientists an opportunity to study how material from the asteroid belt arrives on Earth.

Ruth Hamilton holds a meteorite that had crashed through her roof in October 2021. (Courtesy Ruth Hamilton)

Images of the meteorite shared with CityNews show a smooth, dark rock with some white markings left behind by the impact with Hamilton’s roof.

Another picture shows the large piece of rock sitting on Hamilton’s bed after it came down, pieces of the roof scattered alongside the meteorite that narrowly missed the woman.

“The dog barked twice and then there was a big…what I can call explosion, that’s what it felt like, and debris all over my face,” Hamilton said in October.

“I jumped up, turned on the light switch, and there’s a hole in my ceiling right over my bed. I never received a scratch. Never been so scared in my life.”

Ruth Hamilton was woken up with shock after a meteorite crashed through her ceiling in October 2021 and landed next to her head. (Courtesy Ruth Hamilton)

McCausland says Hamilton loaned his team the meteorite for two months. The celestial mass has since been returned to her, with Hamilton giving scientists the go ahead to keep a small piece of it to continue research.

McCausland adds the team he is part of is working with scientists in Switzerland, the U.K., the U.S., and Italy to learn more about the fragment and its path that led to Golden.

“That’s the material that actually we’re working with international collaborators, now and in the future. That’s the material that remains available in the future for people to be able to work on, 10, 20 years from now,” he said.

With Hamilton now left with a keepsake of her scary encounter, McCausland notes this is something that can happen to anyone.

“One of the biggest features of turning up meteorites is being curious,” he said. “This one is a very exciting event and basically the meteorite found her in this case, but most of the time what happens with meteorite fall events is people are sort of aware that something happened, but then it takes that extra spark of curiosity to follow up on it.”

He encourages anyone who may find themselves in the possession of a meteorite to reach out to scientists, research teams, and even museums or other scientific agencies.

-With files from Claire Fenton and The Canadian Press