Sutter's Mill meteorite
| Sutter's Mill meteorite | |
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Fragments of the Sutter's Mill meteorite obtained from Henningsen Lotus Park, Lotus, California.
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| Type | Chondrite |
| Class | Carbonaceous chondrite |
| Group | CM2 |
| Country | USA |
| Region | California |
| Coordinates |
37°36′N 120°30′W / 37.6°N 120.5°WCoordinates: 37°36′N 120°30′W / 37.6°N 120.5°W (airburst) 38°48’14"N, 120°54’29"W |
| Observed fall | Yes |
| Fall date | 22 April 2012 |
| Found date | 24 April 2012 |
| TKW | 952.7 grams |
| Strewn field | Yes |
 SM33 (8.5 g) fragment with a small part of the fusion crust missing |
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The Sutter's Mill meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite which entered the Earth's atmosphere and broke up at about 07:51 Pacific time on April 22, 2012. The name comes from the Sutter's Mill, the California Gold Rush site, near which some pieces were recovered. This was the largest meteoroid impact over land since asteroid 2008 TC3. Meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens assigned SM numbers to each meteorite, with the documented find location preserving information about where a given meteorite was located in the impacting meteoroid. As of May 2014, 79 fragments have been publicly documented with a find location. The largest (SM53) weighs 205 grams, and the second largest (SM50) weighs 42 grams.
The meteorite was found to contain some of the oldest material in the solar system. Two 10-micron diamond grains (xenoliths) were found in the meteorite recovered before the rain fell. In primitive meteorites like Sutter's Mill, some grains survived from what existed in the cloud of gas, dust and ice that formed the solar system.
During the 2012 Lyrids meteor shower, a bolide and sonic boom rattled buildings in California and Nevada in daylight conditions in the early morning at 07:51 PDT on 22 April 2012. The bolide air burst was caused by a random meteoroid, not a member of the Lyrids shower. The bolide was so bright that witnesses were seeing spots afterward. The falling meteorites were detected by weather radar over an area centered on the Sutter's Mill site in Coloma, between Auburn, California, and Placerville, California.
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