Geological Survey: They usually are heavier than expected for their size, since they contain metallic iron and dense minerals, and they’re often magnetic and irregularly shaped. Meteorites stand out from other rocks in several ways, according to the U.S. The police department has contacted other agencies for help with identifying the object, per the statement. The possible meteorite is around four inches by six inches in size and appears metallic. “It stands as a strong possibility that that’s what this could be.” “If you look at it, it does resemble what certain kinds of meteorites look like,” Pitts tells USA Today. Shannon Graham, a geophysicist at The College of New Jersey, tells WPVI-TV’s Trish Hartman that based on photos and descriptions of the object, it seems consistent with a meteorite. Researchers still need to confirm whether the object is a meteorite. “The instance of that happening, you can count on one hand over the last 1,000 years, maybe.” “Here’s an instance where a sizable object has not only fallen in a populated region, it also hit a house and it was immediately collected by the occupants,” Pitts tells the publication. While an estimated 500 meteorites hit the Earth’s surface each year, less than 10 percent are recovered-most land in the ocean or other remote places.Īs for a meteorite hitting a house, that’s very rare, says Derrick Pitts, an astronomer at the Franklin Institute science museum, to USA Today’s Saleen Martin. They can originate from comets, the moon and other planets, but about 99.8 percent of recovered space rocks have come from asteroids, according to NASA. Meteorites are rocks from space that have fallen to Earth’s surface. The possible meteorite is four inches by six inches in size, oblong in shape and appears to be metallic, according to the police department’s statement. When she approached and touched the rock after assessing the damage, it felt warm. “It appears whatever came from the sky fell through the roof of the top window, that’s my dad’s bedroom,” Suzy Kop tells CBS Philadelphia. The rock broke through the roof and ceiling of the house before landing in a bedroom, denting its floorboards, according to a statement from the Hopewell Township Police Department. A small, black rock believed to be a meteorite struck a home in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, on Monday, reports CBS Philadelphia’s Tom Ignudo and Kerri Corrado.
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