A meteorite the size of an iconic New Jersey pork roll sandwich slammed into a home in Hopewell Township, New Jersey on Monday, smashing through the roof and ceiling before landing on a hardwood floor, according to local officials.
According to local CBS affiliate KYW, the meteor managed to impact Earth and hit a house when no one was home.
“It looked like something came out of the sky that fell through the roof of my dad’s bedroom window,” Suzy Kopp, whose home was hit, told KYW.
He explained that when the meteor crashed into the house, he first thought someone had thrown a rock before realizing what it actually was.
“We think it’s a meteorite, [that] It came here, hit the floor here because it was completely damaged, it flew up to this part of the ceiling and finally came to rest on the floor there.
These reports were later confirmed by the local police.
Understanding the meteor that hit the New Jersey home
Police noted that the meteorite measured about four inches by six inches. In the metric system, that comes to about 10.16 centimeters to 15.24 centimeters.
To use a more New Jersey-friendly measurement, consider a pork roll sandwich or a Taylor ham sandwich, depending on which part of New Jersey you’re from. The meat in question is usually served as part of a breakfast sandwich, which is about six inches in diameter. In other words, the meteor that hit New Jersey was roughly the size of the state’s most iconic dish.
Apart from the damage to the house, however, the meteor impact caused no casualties and posed no danger to any life.
Why did the meteor impact the New Jersey house?
Meteor showers happen frequently and this is far from a recent example.
Some other high-profile cases include the corgi-sized meteorite that impacted Texas, several meteorites that impacted Maine, and the meteorite that exploded over Israel.
However, in this particular case, there may be a specific reason why this happened.
According to police, the meteorite is believed to be part of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower.
The passage of several meteorites into the Earth’s atmosphere is called a meteor shower. These meteors typically come from parent asteroids or comets, and because of the orbits of these bodies, they can be predicted regularly.
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is one of these regular meteor showers that peaks in early May each year. These meteors did not come from an asteroid, but rather from Comet 1P/Halley, also known as Halley’s Comet, the most famous comet of all. The remnants of this comet come to Earth twice a year, once in May for the Eta Aquareids and once for the Orianids in October.
When these meteors hit the atmosphere, they fly through the sky at very high speeds, but burn up in the atmosphere, leaving streaks of colorful light in the night sky.
In particular, the Eta Aquarids are known for their speed, with NASA observing that their meteors fly at about 66 kilometers per second, which is 200 times the speed of sound.
Odds of such a meteorite actually traveling to Earth are incredibly rare, but it can still happen.
What is a meteorite? Meteorites originate from asteroids or other large bodies in space. Asteroids less than one meter in size are simply called meteorites.
When meteors or very small asteroids impact Earth’s atmosphere, they are visible but often disintegrate, sometimes forming bright fireballs in the process. Anything left over from an impact is called a meteorite.
This explosion usually occurs for most meteorites that enter Earth’s atmosphere.
Has this happened before?
The incident in New Jersey is similar to one in November, when an object believed to be part of the Taurid meteor shower crashed into a home in Nevada County, California. In that particular incident, someone was home, resident Dustin Procita and his two dogs. However, according to local NBC affiliate KCRA, the meteor was more destructive, destroying a house and killing one of the dogs.
However, apart from the damage caused by meteorites, the rocks themselves are not dangerous and cool quickly after landing. They are not radioactive or necessarily contaminated.
A meteor or asteroid would have to be very large to cause any significant damage to a planet.
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