Now there's proof that what many saw fly through the sky was a meteorite.

It's hard to forget the image of a fireball in the sky caught on tape in broad daylight during last Sunday's Austin Marathon. Speculation ended as to what the fireball really was when experts determined that it was a meteor.

Now there's actual physical proof that it was a meteor. Amateur astronomer Doug Dawn and his team say they were able to find meteorites. Dawn's team analyzed the video footage shot by News 8 photographer Eddie Garcia. Dawn said there was a lot of information available in the film and it helped with calculations of where the material was coming from.

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	Meteorite findings Find out how one amateur astronomer and his team found the meteorites near Waco.

Rob Matson is an expert in Los Angeles who helped narrow the likely location of the meteorite's landfall. Dawn and his team already had radar data and immediately made their way out to the countryside in the Waco area.

The main mass was not found. With the help of area residents who reported observing the fall, the team immediately recognized and collected multiple tiny blackened, fusion crusted meteorite fragments.

"The Texas sized hospitality, tolerance, and enthusiastic cooperation of the landowners was greatly appreciated by the search team," Dawn said.

Two days after the fall, the team sent their findings to Los Angeles to Alan Rubin, Ph.D. at UCLA, a meteorite classification scientist. Classification is very important because until an approved, official meteoritical scientist approves a meteorite, it's not official. Chemical analysis was conducted on the meteorite to further confirm its identification.

Rubin said fresh meteorites have distinct characteristics, such as being all black, as long as it's not cracked. Once it's cracked, the inside is typically a light, gray metal flex, called the matrix. Dr. Rubin determined that it was an ordinary chondrite, also known as a Type L6.

	Amateur astronomer Doug Dawn.

L6's are one of the most common types of meteorites that fall, and possibly are originally from asteroid (8)Flora, a large asteroid whose orbit lies between Mars and Jupiter's, though scientists are still working out the details of origin.

"The entire experience was as incredibly exciting as it was incredibly humbling, to think, that hours earlier these meteorites were part of a tiny asteroid, called a meteoroid, floating in the heavens," Dawn said. "This is the stuff that dreams are made of, for an amateur astronomer, to actually reach out and touch a piece of heaven that we admire so much in our telescopes, and to contribute importantly to science by recovering it and providing it for analysis. It shows us our small place in the universe."