Brodie Spaulding feels lucky. Not only did the 13-year-old find a meteorite, he saw it land. And it missed him.
The youth was standing in his front yard in Noblesville, about 10 miles north of Indianapolis, when the fist-size meteorite plummeted to earth about 5 feet away from him on Aug. 31."I was amazed," Spaulding said. "It just happened all of a sudden. I heard a real low whistling noise and saw a rock laying there.
"I feel pretty lucky, especially because it didn't hit me."
Spaulding said the meteorite was still warm when he picked it up. It was "dense and solid and kind of like burnt coal."
Purdue University chemistry professor Michael Lipschutz, who specializes in meteorite analysis, said Spaulding is a rare witness to such an event.
"Only about one of these falls on every million square kilometers on the Earth's surface each year, and it's very rare to have one fall at someone's feet," Lipschutz said.
He said it was the 10th meteorite found in Indiana, and the third to be witnessed falling.
"People always ask if anyone's been killed by one of these," Lipschutz said. "As far as I know, nobody has been, but Brodie could have been in danger if it hit him."