On November 12, 1799, Andrew Ellicott, an early American
astronomer, witnessed the Leonids meteor shower from
a ship off the Florida Keys. Ellicott wrote in his journal
that the “whole heaven appeared as if illuminated with
sky rockets, flying in an infinity of directions, and I was
in constant expectation of some of them falling on the
vessel.

They continued until put out by the light of the sun after
day break.” Ellicott’s journal entry is the first known record
of a meteor shower in North America.

The crater lies on the south end of Inver Grove Heights, near
the Mississippi River.

(Fox News) – University of Minnesota researchers have discovered
an ancient crater lying 350 feet below a Mississippi River suburb.

A team of scientists at the Minnesota Geological Survey (MGS) –
part of the university’s College of Science and Engineering’s
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences – discovered the
crater while updating a geologic map of Dakota County; the
county borders Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

For reference, researchers say they believe this crater would be
11 times the size of the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona. They
say it appears the massive meteor struck the earth around 490
million years ago, putting it near the end of the Cambrian period.

BOSTON (AP) — A 12-pound chunk of the moon that fell to the Earth as a
lunar meteorite has been sold at auction for more than $600,000. It was
found last year in a remote area of Mauritania in northwest Africa.

Boston-based RR Auction announced Friday the $612,500 winning bid for
the meteorite, composed of six fragments that fit together like a puzzle,
came from a representative working with the Tam Chuc Pagoda complex
in Ha Nam Province, Vietnam. They predicted it would get $500,000 at
auction.

It is considered one of the most significant lunar meteorites ever found
because of its large size and because it has "partial fusion crust" caused
by the tremendous heat that sears the rock as it falls to Earth.

On this day in 1992, 18-year-old Michelle Knapp (above) is watching television
in her parents’ living room in Peekskill, New York when she hears a loud
crash in the driveway. Alarmed, Knapp ran outside to investigate. What
she found was startling, to say the least: a sizeable hole in the rear end
of her car, a 1980 Chevy Malibu (above); a matching hole in the gravel
driveway underneath the car; and in the hole, the culprit: what looked 
like an ordinary, bowling-ball–sized rock. It was extremely heavy
for its size (it weighed about 28 pounds), shaped like a football and
warm to the touch; also, it smelled vaguely of rotten eggs. The next day,
a curator from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
confirmed that the object was a genuine meteorite and is estimated to be
4.4 billion years old.

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A portion of the Peekskill meteorite in the National Museum of Natural History.