Possible Meteorite Crashes Through Roof Of US Home, Residents Safe

A US family residing in New Jersey were left shocked this week when a potential meteorite burst through the roof of their house, as per a report in CBS News. According to the Hopewell Township Police Department, a four-by-six-inch item struck a ranch-style house on Old Washington Crossing Pennington Road on Monday, causing damage to the hardwood floor. The family members were not inside the house at the time of the collision.

A "metallic object believed to be a meteorite" damaged the roof of a ranch-style home, according to a statement issued by the Police. Before it "impacted the hardwood floor" and came to rest, the oblong item had passed through the home's roof and ceiling, the police stated. 

The space rock was seen next to a damaged, broken floor in a photo shared by the department.

Suzy Kop, one of the residents, told CBS News that a 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," she said. 

"We are thinking it's a meteorite, came through here, hit the floor here because that's completely damaged, it ricocheted up to this part of the ceiling and then finally rested on the floor there," she added. 

Ms Kop thought that someone had thrown a rock at the house until she got a closer look at the object, which was "warm" to the touch. She continued telling the outlet, "I did touch the thing because I thought it was a random rock, I don't know, and it was warm."

Emergency personnel checked on the family to make sure there were no residual substances or aftereffects from the object. Everything "came back clear," as per Ms Kop. 

The police said that they have also contacted several other organisations for assistance in "safeguarding the residents and the object." Hopewell Township Police Department noted 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 every year.

As per the outlet, Derrick Pitts, the Chief Astronomer at the Franklin Institute, believes that the object could be "four to five billion years old, left over from the beginning of the solar system." Mr Pitts told the outlet, "It's been running around in space all that time and now it's come to Earth and fell in their laps. 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."