Space rock crash: Possible meteorite crashes into home

HOPEWELL, N.J. — A family in New Jersey got a surprise from outer space this week.

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Hopewell Police said something from out of this world crashed through the roof of a home and bounced around a bedroom. The object was metallic and is believed to be a meteorite, CNN reported.

The metallic object was about 4 inches by 6 inches, and according to CNN’s broadcast, was about the size of an avocado, but much heavier.

Luckily no one was in the bedroom when the object crashed into the house and no one was hurt at the time.

“I did touch the thing because I just thought it was a random rock,” Suzy Kop told KYW-TV. “And it was warm.”

She thought that someone had thrown a rock at the house.

The meteorite crashed through Kop’s father’s home and into his bedroom.

“I just thank God that my father was not here. No one was here,” she told the television station. “You know, we weren’t hurt or anything.”

Police said they believe it is a meteorite from the Eta Aquariids meteor shower, which is happening right now.

The meteor shower happens every year and is actually debris from Hailey’s Comet, CNN reported.

It was expected to peak over the weekend but will last through May 27, the American Meteor Society said.

The chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Derrick Pitts, told KYW that the object may be four to five billion years old, and left over from the start of the solar system.

“It’s been running around in space all that time and now it’s come to Earth and fell in their laps,” Pitts said. “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.”

While it is odd that an extraterrestrial object would hit a house, it isn’t unusual for something from space hit the Earth. Normally, though, they land in areas where there are no people since the planet has oceans and undeveloped areas covering the majority of the surface.

But it can happen.

There was a suspected meteorite that crashed into a home in Northern California last year, KCRA reported.

In that case, a fire started at the home shortly after impact. The resident and his two dogs were home, but one of the dogs died in the fire, KCRA reported at the time.