[meteorite-list] This day in meteorite history

[Greg Catterton]

The Canon City Meteorite 
On the evening of Oct. 27, 1973, a meteorite hurtled through the sky in Canon City, Colo. It landed on a garage, tearing a six-inch hole in the roof and leaving a two-inch gash in the garage’s cement floor. The meteorite, which weighed 1.4 kg at the time of impact, was classified as a chondrite, a stony meteorite that is the most common type to hit Earth. According to scientist Glenn Huss, who was director of the American Meteorological Laboratory at the time, the Canon City meteorite originated 60 million miles away, in an asteroid belt. 

At the time, it was only the third meteorite in Colorado to be discovered shortly after landfall. Upon impact, the meteorite broke into four large pieces and more than 50 fragments. A 2001 report named the Canon City meteorite as only one of 35 meteorites to hit a man-made structure in the United States.