JOHNSTOWN, Colo. — Just north of Denver, a crowd gathered for a homecoming celebration for a rock from millions of miles away.
“This meteorite and Johnstown are very famous in the science world,” Richard Binzel, Professor of Planetary Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said.
It is so famous that Binzel traveled from outside Boston to the sleepy town for the 100th anniversary of when the space rock arrived and made an impact on the locals.
“There was a little bit of a warning because they heard what sounded like cannon shots and rifle shots,” Binzel said.
The sonic booms startled those who saw the streak and where the meteorite hit, in a cemetery, where on July 6, 1924, John Moore was being buried.
“Because it was a funeral, they happened to have shovels. It was very straightforward to run over to the spot, dig it up and find that meteorite,” Binzel said.
Scientists studied that rock and found it came from the asteroid Vesta.
NASA now has an online tracker for it after a mission to visit it in 2011.
It’s one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, just past Mars.
Local reports of the time even made mention of a rock from Mars, calling it “A warning, boys.”
Chicago’s Field Museum is one of four museums in the U.S. that have a piece of it.
For Johnstown, it’s a memorable moment, to commemorate and celebrate, a century later.
“It’s something that’s really special, not something we may not see again for another 50 or 100 years here in Colorado,” Colorado State Geologist Matt Morgan said.
Visit NASA’s website for more information on the Johnstown meteorite.