Scientists at Chicago museum study Michigan meteor

CHICAGO (AP) — Scientists at Chicago's Field Museum are studying a piece of the meteor that broke apart earlier this month over Michigan.

The meteorite, the size of a peach pit, arrived Wednesday. NASA scientists say the six-foot-wide meteor broke apart about 20 miles over Earth on Jan. 16.

Meteorite hunter Robert Ward found it on a snow-covered lake near the town of Hamburg and donated it to the museum.

A meteoroid is a small chunk of asteroid or comet. When it enters Earth's atmosphere it becomes a meteor, fireball or shooting star. The pieces of rock that hit the ground are meteorites.