Midwest Meteor Gets Named

A meteor that lit up Midwestern skies earlier this year has been named: Mifflin.

Chicago's Field Museum said this week that the Meteoritical Society named the meteorite after Mifflin Township, Wisc., where it fell
on April 14.

Meteorite hunters, including Lake Forest's Terry Boudreaux and his two sons, went out en masse looking for fragments after the rock streaked across the skies of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

"This is amazing.  This is 4.7 billion years old.  I can hold this and this flew out there in space for millions and billions of years, and it contains the remnants of the birth of our solar system, and there's something pretty humbling about that," Boudreaux said after picking up a fragment in Linvingston, Wis.

The Mifflin Meteorite is one of just 14 meteorites that have hit the state, according to the Meteoritical Society website.

Many of the pieces are on display at the Field Museum, where Boudreaux's wife is a trustee.
 

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