On Tuesday night, an apparent meteor fell through the roof of a New Jersey house. At that link there is a video which shows the object. I will admit, it really does look like a metal meteorite to me. I can’t say for sure, of course, but the shape and markings look like the real thing:
It evidently fell at a high speed, crashing through several layers of building material. It is very dense, and shiny. I am surprised there is nothing in the video about it being attracted by a magnet. That would be interesting to know, since metal meteorites are strongly attracted to a magnet.
The video has the usual dumb interviews, of course, this being local news. One guy says it might be something the government is covering up. Sigh.
At the end, the newscasters wonder if it could be associated with a meteor shower. The annual Quadrantrids do peak around now, but meteor showers (except for one, the Geminids) are associated with comets, and comets don’t have metals in them. Just rocks, ice, and so on.
Now, I don’t want to make too broad a statement there. Some objects have both asteroidal and comet-like features, and it’s certainly possible that some comets might have metals in them. But it’s difficult to believe that a chunk like this object that hit the house could come from a comet. It does go against almost everything we know about comets. I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s extremely unlikely.
Also, it’s unclear when the object hit, but it sounds from the report like it was in the early evening, which is also inconsistent with it being from the shower: due to the orbital geometry, an impact would only happen at night, and most likely after local midnight. That’s because the Earth plows into meteoroid swarms, and so you see more meteors from the part of the Earth facing into the direction it’s traveling. It’s like driving through the rain: more drops hit your front windshield than your back one. In the case of the Earth, the part facing into the orbital direction (and where it’s dark enough to see meteors) is the part experiencing a time after midnight.This NJ object hit too early to be part of the meteor shower. Oops– that was a mistake on my part, as a commenter pointed out.
If this thing turns out to be meteorite, it’s most likely a sporadic one, a random bit of metal from an asteroid that broke up. It may have orbited the Sun countless times, for billions of years, only to have the Earth get in its way on a Tuesday evening. I collect meteorites, and when I look at them I marvel at their age and their history. It’s one of the only aspects of astronomy you can literally hold in your hand.
I’ll keep my ears open for more information on this. It’s very rare for such cases to be the real thing, but this one seems more legitimate than any I have heard in a while.
Tip o’ the Whipple shield to Fark.com.
January 4th, 2007 at 4:30 am
Pat Robertson was right. We have been attacked
January 4th, 2007 at 5:11 am
…Why would the government cover up a meteorite’s fall? I don’t get it.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Actually, the Quadrantids have been associated with an asteroid, designated 2003 EH1 (see the March 2004 issue of Sky & Telescope, page 26). But, like the source of the Geminids, it’s presumed to be a dead comet.
Although chunks of iron are probably not going to come off even a dead comet, the day-or-night timing of the shower is irrelevant, as all that matters is whether the radiant of the shower is above the horizon. Meteors happen all the time during the daylight — detectable with radar — we just can’t see them. The Quadrantid radiant is close to being circumpolar, and thus it’s above the horizon for much of the day for midnorthern latitudes.
The news report I saw this morning reassured America by saying tests showed the rock wasn’t radioactive — as if meteorites ever are.
January 4th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Sure, radioactive meteorites are almost never found. But we have to check anyway. Why?
Zombies, man. Zombies.
January 4th, 2007 at 8:28 am
It’s a bit of a stretch, but metallic space junk can impact comets the same way they can hit anything else, then get carried along and perhaps shed when a bit of ice melts.
As I said, it’s a stretch, but space is big and time is long.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Stuart, that’s a good point. I was thinking of prograde ecliptically-orbiting comets. I’ll fix that part of the post.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:18 am
I collect meteorites, and when I look at them I marvel at their age and their history. It’s one of the only aspects of astronomy you can literally hold in your hand.
You know, I used to think this way too. But one day I was standing in a science museum, looking at a big meteorite and marveling to myself “Wow – that thing came from outer space!” when it suddenly occurred to me: Sure the meteorite came from outer space, but so did the iron in stand that it was sitting on, and so did the molecules in the plexiglas cover that surrounded it!
Look around you – this whole friggin’ place is made up of stuff from outer space – even YOU!
Sure, I know that a meteorite seems somehow different, and that’s cool. But it’s also the same – and that’s cooler.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:23 am
TR: The cool thing is that the metal has not yet been through a Chinese factory.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:51 am
So … how long before this appears on eBay …
January 4th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I saw one of the news reports where the reporter interviewed a few locals. One little kid thought it might be a piece of a UFO (as in alien spaceship) or that that aliens might be bombing us with “atomic bombs”. Kids should have imagination, but maybe he’s seen too many Will Smith movies.
What really irritated me was that the next person interviewed, an adult woman, thought it was caused by global warming.
January 4th, 2007 at 10:43 am
There are numerous reports of a meteor space junk in the Denver, CO area as well (Thanks to Drudge Report and 9News.com)
http://www.drudgereport.com/ with links to videos.
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=62596).
January 4th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Awesome video of what appears to be space junk or other debris entering the atmosphere over Denver, CO near dawn this morning.
http://www.myfoxcolorado.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=1961501&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1
January 4th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Thanks Dr. Bowie – cool video!
From the story: “Experts at the Air Force Space Command, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, say it was a Russian SL-4 rocket body that re-entered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming.”
Meanwhile, those babbling local “news” folks go on and on about the Quadrantrids (which that isn’t.) Its burning up like a manufactured object with separate components and materials breaking off and burning, leaving streaks.
So far – with he New Jersey, this morning CNN calls it a “mystery object” in their headline and (gasp) Comcast.net’s homepage news video labels it a (cringe) “UFO”.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Looks exactly like a pretty typical small Iron meteorite that fall out of the sky every day. Why people on the news are saying it’s “Global Warming” “The Government” and a “Mystery Object” is kind of funny.
Hell, you can roam around in the country side and find them if you feel like it, Earth is covered in Iron meteors.
January 4th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Red Top Mountain State PArk(Georgia) is a classic example of an ancient asteroid/meteor impact. The soil is rich in oxidized iron, with pleanty of small pieces of rocky iron still lying around all over the place. From the late 1800s, clear up to the early 20th century it was an iron mine. Now, after the Corps of Engineers replaced the burnt off hardwoods(in the 1950s) by planting 100,000 trees, it is a lovely state park, with lots of(actually, too many) deer(we have no large predators), racoons, rats, mice, squirrels, turkeys, ducks, etc, etc,. We have nearly 1.5 million visitors a year. What a great place to be, 250 million years AFTER the fall,,,
Gary 7
January 4th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
The AP news item on the NJ meteorite made the event sound
like a cross between a terrorist attack and an alien invasion.
Phil, you and the rest of us with at least a smattering of intelligence
and skepticism, have our work cut out for us yet again.
January 4th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
The NY Times had it on the front page of the Metro Section this morning. A much more sedate article than others.
Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/nyregion/04ball.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
January 4th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Also, the Colorado and Wyoming stuff just got identified as parts of a Russian rocket according to the AP reports on the NY Times website.
January 4th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
I’m so ashamed. Better?
January 4th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Wow. What crappy news coverage. Too bad such an awesome video was coupled with such horrible conjecture.
January 4th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
The meteorologist on the Denver video of the space debris actually said that the Quandrantrids are “meteors from an extinct constellation.”
Hoo, boy.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
gary ansorge,
i am fascinated to hear that red top mountain s.p. is an impact site. i live in atlanta, and i thought the nearest identifiable impact of any significance was north of montgomery alabama! now, before i drive up 75 and start trying to collect ancient meteorite fragments, you need to tell me where you got your information. i want to learn about it too! don’t leave a brother out in the cold about localized ancient cataclysmic planetary convergences (i mean really converging).
January 4th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
How does one get their own pet meteorite?
January 4th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
JanieBell, yes. Just don’t let it happen again!
January 4th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 3:14 am
Certain terrestrial microbes ‘breathe’ native metals as waste products- such processes are thought to account for a good amount of the non-oxidized or sulfide-bound metal deposites.
NOW, *if* similar lifeforms might exist in space, then we might have an explanation for such finds as the fall in NJ. I have coined the term ‘astrocoprolite’ to cover them.
Others might think of them more generically as ‘ore-dure’.
January 5th, 2007 at 7:55 am
[...] “A NJ house hit by a meteorite?“, no Bad Astronomy; [...]
January 5th, 2007 at 11:36 am
What is so mysterious about this? It’s a meteorite!
Part of the “extinct constellation” that fall on Denver. Heheh!
*sigh*
January 5th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
the object that came through the roof, was attracted by a magnet.
This was reported in the local Monmouth County NJ newspapers.
My question is…..wouldn’t an object that is the size of a golf ball, yet
weighing in at 13 oz. cause more damage then piercing a roof, and
coming to rest in a second floor bathroom?
January 6th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Radiation and Velocity..
As to checking possible meteorites for radioactivity… There are two issues
Given there were a few plutonium power supplies used in the Soviet space programs and the remote but real possibility not all are tracked and accounted for in the post Soviet era, a scan for radioactivity is prudent just to insure it isn’t dangerous.
Meteoroids in space are constantly irradiated and that irradiation ceases when the meteoroid falls to ground. The presence of several short-lived radio-nuclides are scientifically valuable and should be measured as soon as possible. These natural radioactive isotopes aren’t dangerous. In fact we have to shield them from background radiation to measure them.
As to velocity for smaller meteoroids, all cosmic velocity is expended whilst passing through the upper 100+ miles of atmosphere. Meteoroids stop visible (Glowing) flight at no less than 5 miles above sea level. and by no less than 3 miles cosmic velocity is gone all together. Once cosmic velocity is depleted the meteoroid falls in the dark phase at normal gravity acceleration, where air resistance limits the acceleration to to between 120-400 mph, in theory. Most house “hammers” do puncture the roof and bounce around smashing other objects in the house. So the report for this object is consistent.
January 6th, 2007 at 5:16 am
People keep on misunderstanding the issue about testing found objects for radioactivity.
No one is testing them because they think that meteorites are radioactive. They are testing it to determine if it contains radioactive material to see if it’s safe to handle, and to eliminate it as a meteorite.
Theoretically, a piece of a reactor or warhead that was airborne or in orbit could fall to earth following a mishap.
Remember the refueling accident that destroyed an American bomber near the coast of Spain, and showered the area with bits of fissile material from the unexploded warheads?
January 6th, 2007 at 7:14 am
SCIENTIFIC METHOD?
There is little about the New Jersey object that resembles a freshly fallen meteorite. It’s shape is so ambiguous—at best—that the only possible way to determine whether it was a freshly fallen meteorite is for a sample to be provided for destructive analysis.
The parameters used for the identification, density, magnetic properties, markings and coloration are wholly insufficient in the determination of the origin of such an object.
While it may ultimately be among the most unusual freshly fallen meteorites known to exist, such an assessment cannot and should not ever have been made by passing it around for a casual analysis.
Darryl Pitt
Macovich Collection of Meteorites
http://www.macovich.com
January 6th, 2007 at 8:53 am
it looks to me that the metal object might of come from a industrial tub grinder.i had two pieces of metal crash threw a metal roof on a building,they were not to happy.i saw a 80 lb piece of metal fly 200 yards a small piece like that could fly alot further.if i where the police i drive aroud the neighbor hood and see if anyone is doing any land clearing there,i am sure the tub grinder is gone,i know i would get out of there fast.just a thought boys and girls.
January 8th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Quick update:
According to this article at PhysOrg.com (whose source is the AP wire, just FYI),
January 30th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
good to see the range of comments on the new guy in from out there. FT was on show at Rutgers Geological Museum last Saturday – it attracted very many folks from tyhe general publkic, children and space enthusiasts – clearly the magnetic properties work better then we imagined!! It was so exciting to see a close up view of a new guy on earth. I last saw meteorites under the microscope back in England about 35 years ago. My twin brither did his PhD on a fragment from the Canyon Diablo Meteorite. Our professor back then was Dr Howard Axon at Manchester University – he was a well known expert in meteorites and lunar rocks.
May 12th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Turns out it was some space junk. Of course it could also be part of a muffler from an alien UFO.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070512/ap_on_sc/fallen_object_4;_ylt=Aq67XSDqueyA6Cn_RVs9Ge8E1vAI