A week after a meteor blazed over the Madison skyline, the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum is being showered with multiple meteorite fragments from local residents.

Several individuals from the Livingston, Wis., area have loaned a total of six fragments from the meteorite, which hit April 14, for the museum to display through the end of this week. Five fragments are about the size of peanuts, and the sixth is approximately 100 grams, according to Brooke Norsted, assistant director of the museum.

Norsted added meteorites often look like rocks to the untrained eye, saying most non-geologists who find them only recognize them because they fall in unusual locations, like the roof of a car.

She said there are, however, telltale signs people can look for.

“What’s distinctive about meteorites, and this one in particular, is that it has this fusion crust on the outside of it,” Norsted said. “It’s a very thin layer that forms when the meteor is coming through the atmosphere and just the outside of it heats up and melts a little bit.”

UW Space Place Director James Lattis said the majority of meteors burn up completely on their journey through the atmosphere. Of the larger ones that do hit the surface, very few make the same impact on as many people as the April 14 meteor did.

“A large meteor coming in over a populated area on a clear night makes a big difference” in capturing people’s attention, Lattis said.

Lattis said some experts at the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office estimated the meteorite could have originally been one meter long because of its visibility and the amount of debris that made it through the atmosphere.

“Not all meteors are quite this dramatic,” Norsted said, adding this particular one got a lot of attention because of its bright flash, which was caused by the meteor breaking into pieces as it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

After Sunday, the meteorite fragments on loan to the UW Geology Museum will be returned to their owners.