Apparent meteorite crashes through roof of New Jersey home and damages floor: "It was warm"
A New Jersey family said they are thankful everyone is safe after an apparent meteorite crashed through their roof on Monday afternoon.
According to a statement released by the Hopewell Police Department, a "metallic object believed to be a meteorite" struck the roof of a ranch-style home. The oblong object, which police described as being about four inches by six inches, went through the roof and ceiling of the home before it "impacted the hardwood floor" and came to a stop.
An image released by police showed the space rock next to a damaged, cracked floor.
Suzy Kop, a resident of the home, told CBS Philadelphia that meteorite landed in her father's bedroom, but no one was home.
"I thank God that my father was not here, no one was here, we weren't hurt or anything," Kop told the station.
She found the object, she said, amid debris in the room after it came through the ceiling. At first, she said she believed it had been thrown.
"I did touch the thing, because I thought it was a random rock, I don't know, and it was warm," she told CBS Philadelphia.
Kop said that emergency responders checked on her and her family, confirming that there were no lingering substances or effects from the object. It all "came back clear," she told CBS Philadelphia.
Police said that they have contacted several other agencies to positively identify the object and for help "safeguarding the residents and the object." They said that the object could be connected to an ongoing meteor shower called the Eta Aquariids, an event related to Halley's Comet that is visible from mid-April to late May and usually peaks around May 5 each year.
The investigation remains ongoing, police said.
Derrick Pitts, the chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute, told CBS Philadelphia that the object could be billions of years old, and could be as old as the solar system itself.
"It's been running around in space all that time and now it's come to Earth and fell in their laps," Pitts told CBS Philadelphia. "For it to actually strike a house, for people to be able to pick up, that's really unusual and has happened very few times in history."
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Kerry Breen is a news editor and reporter for CBS News. Her reporting focuses on current events, breaking news and substance use.
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