On Tuesday night, a meteor illuminated the sky over Ohio and Michigan in the US and Ontario in Canada, and two days after the celestial event a meteorite hunter discovered three pieces of space rock in Hamburg Township, Michigan.
Robert Ward, a planetary field scientist, spotted the first meteorite, which is the size of a pecan, on a frozen Michigan lake on Thursday and in less than four hours he found two more pieces of the space rock, according to the Detroit Free Press.
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"It's a really spectacular specimen," Ward told the publication, adding, "Two days ago, this was hundreds of thousands of miles past the moon, and now I'm standing here holding it in my hand. It's been a really good day."
On Tuesday, the large meteor, which was categorised as bolide meteor, exploded in a fireball and this phenomenon was witnessed in several places in the US and Canada. According to NASA, the meteor exploded about 20 miles over Earth and showered the pieces near Hamburg Township.
Several amateur hunters started looking for the pieces of the space rock, but it was Ward and his team who knew where to look for it. Using scientific data, Ward and his team found out the meteor fragments.
"We had really good data on this one. The seismic data lined up with Doppler data and the witness data. Everything came together on this one," he said, adding, "I just saw a little black spot and that was it, but you know, so I was very fortunate to make the recovery but undoubtedly there's more out there."
He found the first piece at around 9.50 am local time on Thursday, the second piece was discovered at 1 pm and the third one was discovered at 1.39 pm.
"I just found a meteorite, man! All right man, it's happening," he explained.
