Visitors sometimes just drop in on us. But a visitor to a home in Georgia took the notion of “dropping in” a bit far. It smashed through the roof, an air duct, and a thick layer of insulation before splatting into the floor, leaving a crater the size of a quarter. It missed smacking into a resident by just 14 feet.

The “visitor” was a meteorite – part of a much larger space rock. The rock formed a glowing streak as it raced through the skies of the southeastern United States on June 26th. Hundreds of people saw it, and many more heard it – it produced a sonic boom, plus an explosion before it hit the ground.

The bit that smashed into the house was one of more than 200 samples recovered. In all, they totaled about 12 pounds. Collectively, they were called the McDonough meteorite for the small town where they hit.

Eyewitness reports, videos, weather radar, and weather satellites helped scientists reconstruct the space rock’s origin. It came from the asteroid belt – a wide band of debris between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It probably was a piece from a much larger body that broke apart 470 million years ago.

Lab studies revealed the meteorite’s age: 4.56 billion years – about 20 million years older than Earth. That means it was similar to the rocky building blocks that came together to make Earth. So the McDonough meteorite is an ancient visitor that dropped in with a bang.

Script by Damond Benningfield