Michelle Knapp
The 18-year-old from Peekskill, New York, whose car was hit by a 12-kilogram meteorite in October 1992.
Key facts
- Nationality
- American
- Field
- Car owner
On the evening of Friday 9 October 1992 a brilliant green fireball crossed the eastern United States, from Kentucky towards New York. It was moving slowly enough, and lasted long enough, that more than a dozen people filmed it with video cameras, many of them at school American football games. It was the first meteorite fall ever recorded on so many films.
In Peekskill, a town north of New York City, Michelle Knapp, aged 18, heard a loud crash outside her home. Going out, she found a hole in the boot of her red 1980 Chevrolet Malibu and a warm stone lying beneath the car. It weighed about 12.4 kilograms. The police were called, and some thought at first it was vandalism.
The stone was an H6 ordinary chondrite. Because the fireball had been filmed from many places, scientists could reconstruct its path through the air and its orbit around the Sun with high accuracy, showing it came from the asteroid belt.
The damaged car became famous in its own right. The meteorite and the car were sold to collectors, and the car has been exhibited around the world, a rare chance to see a car that has been hit by a meteorite.
On the timeline
- 9 October 1992Peekskill: a fireball filmed by football fans