Weston meteorite
Encyclopedia
The Weston meteorite is a meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...

 which fell to earth above the town of Weston, Connecticut
Weston, Connecticut
Weston is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The population was 10,179 at the 2010 census. The town is served by Route 57 and Route 53, both of which run through the town center. About 19% of the town's workforce commutes to New York City, about to the southwest.Like many towns in...

 at approximately 6:30 in the morning on December 14, 1807. The meteor fall was widely witnessed and reported in newspaper accounts at the time. Eyewitnesses reported three loud explosions, and stone fragments fell in at least six locations.

Fragments from the fall were collected, documented, and chemically analyzed by Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 professors Benjamin Silliman
Benjamin Silliman
Benjamin Silliman was an American chemist, one of the first American professors of science , and the first to distill petroleum.-Early life:...

 and James Kingsley
James Kingsley
James Kingsley was an attorney and mayor of Ann Arbor from 1855-1856.Attorney James "Honest Jim" Kingsley, who came to Ann Arbor in 1826, was the first member of the Washtenaw County Bar, a probate judge, and a member of both the territorial and later the state legislature, as well as Ann Arbor's...

. The Weston meteorite is the first meteorite to fall in the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

 which was documented in such a manner, marking the beginning of meteorite science in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Fragments of the meteorite remain within the Yale meteorite collection, which is the oldest such collection in the United States.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK