Shocking discovery of 'strange object from Oort Cloud' falling in Canada

New analysis of a green fireball from the Oort Cloud that landed in Canada in February 2021 could change a host of understandings about the formation of Earth and the entire Solar System.

According to Sci-News, it was a 2kg meteorite that penetrated the Earth's atmosphere about 100km north of Edmonton, Alberta - Canada at 13:23:17 UTC on February 22, 2021.

It was identified as an object from the Oort Cloud, a belt of icy bodies and cold comets at the edge of the Solar System.

An object from the Oort Cloud entering the Canadian atmosphere captured by the Global Fireball Observatory camera at Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada - (Photo: UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA)

What came from there should have been ice, according to all the previous scientific evidence, research, and theories about the Oort Cloud. But no,  the meteorite that fell to Canada was rock.

Scientists didn't directly capture the meteorite that landed in 2021, but very clear footage, images, and tracking data have helped to understand its nature.

The research team led by Dr. Denis Vida, a meteorologist from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario (Canada), said the meteorite penetrated deeper into the Earth's atmosphere than other icy meteorites.

The way it broke up in the atmosphere, not far from the ground, further confirmed that it was a rock. All previous stone fireballs had come much closer to Earth,

"This discovery supports a completely different model for the formation of the Solar System - supporting the previously unpopular idea that a significant amount of rocky material also exists alongside icy objects in the Oort Cloud," Dr Vida explained.

'This result cannot be explained by the currently favored models of the formation of the Solar System. It is a complete game changer,' he added .

There has long been evidence to support the theory that everything that makes up the Solar System - including our own Earth, especially the seeds of the oceans and life - originated deep in interstellar space, accumulating in the outermost belt of the Solar System and then following space objects deep inside, blending into the material of young planets.

The presence of a rocky object in the Oort Cloud suggests that part of ourselves may have been created in that seemingly snowball world of comets and giant ice meteorites. Perhaps there were already perfect building blocks there, ready to be assembled and directly involved in the formation of planets.

The study was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy.