Rare 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Crashes Into New Jersey Home: 'It Penetrated The Roof'
Shannon Graham, who helped analyze the rock, said the meteorite had likely come from the belt of asteroids that lies between Jupiter and Mars, around 600 million miles from Earth
Scientists believe a metallic rock that fell into a New Jersey home on Monday came from outer space.
The Hopewell Township Police Department said in a press release that the metallic object "penetrated the roof" of a home on Old Washington Crossing Pennington Road. It then came through the ceiling of the house and "impacted the hardwood floor before coming to a rest," added the release.
Police said although the home was occupied at the time no one was injured in the incident and the "ranch-style building" did not suffer serious damage.
The New Jersey family that owned the house told Associated Press they discovered the metallic rock in the corner of one of their upstairs bedrooms around 12:30 p.m. and it was still warm.
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Suzy Kop told the outlet that they thought someone had thrown a rock into their home. That theory was later proven wrong after hazmat officials responded to the incident and checked her family for exposure to radioactive material. Kop said those checks ended up negative, per AP.
Scientists with The College of New Jersey conducted a visual and density examination and scanned electron microscope images of the object, which measured 4 inches by 6 inches and weighed about 2.2. lbs. After studying the object, they announced Thursday that it was a rare stony chondrite meteorite.
"We are excited to be able to confirm that the object is a true chondrite meteorite, in excellent condition, and one of a very small number of similar witnessed chondrite falls known to science," Nathan Magee, chair of the school's physics department, told AP.
Shannon Graham, an assistant professor of physics at the college who helped analyze the rock, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the chondrite meteorite, which contains low levels of iron, is one of only 1,100 to have ever been found.
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Graham added that she believed the space rock had likely come from a belt of asteroids that lies between Jupiter and Mars, around 600 million miles from Earth. She told the newspaper the space material is likely 4.5 billion years old because of this, but that experts would need to run additional tests to date it more precisely.
"It's basically leftover debris from the formation of the solar system," she told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "So, it's pretty cool."
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