[meteorite-list] Metal Object Crashes Through New Jersey Home
Ron Baalke baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov
Wed Jan 3 19:18:18 EST 2007
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1120AP_Fallen_Object.html
Metal object crashes through N.J. home
By CHRIS NEWMARKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 3, 2007
A metal, rock-like object about the size of a golf ball is seen in
this undated photograph provided by Det. R. Gelber of Freehold Township
Police Department in Freehold Township, N.J., Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007.
Nobody was injured when the oblong object, weighing more than 13 ounces,
crashed into the a Monmouth County home Tuesday night. Federal officials
sent to the scene said it was not from an aircraft. (AP Photo/ Det. R.
Gelber of Freehold township Police Department )
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- A metal, rock-like object about the size of a
golf ball and weighing nearly as much as a can of soup crashed through
the roof of a Monmouth County home, and authorities on Wednesday were
trying to figure out what it was.
Nobody was injured when the oblong object, weighing more than 13 ounces,
crashed into the home and embedded itself in a wall Tuesday night.
Federal officials sent to the scene said it was not from an aircraft.
The rough-feeling object, with a metallic glint, was displayed Wednesday
by police. "There's some great interest in what we have here," said Lt.
Robert Brightman. "It's rather unusual. I haven't seen anything like it
in my career."
He said he hoped to have the object identified within 72 hours, but
declined to name the other agencies whose help he said he had enlisted.
Police received a call Wednesday morning that the metal object had
punched a hole in the roof of a single-family, two-story home, damaged
tiles on a bathroom floor below and then bounced, sticking into a wall.
The object was heavier than a usual metal object of that size, said
Brightman, who added that no radioactivity was detected.
Brightman would not disclose the address of the house or the names of
the people who lived there, citing the family's desire to not talk to
the media. He would only say that the couple and their adult son live in
a township housing development.
Brightman said one man who lives at the home found the object at about 9
p.m. Tuesday after returning from work and hearing from his mother that
something had crashed through the roof a few hours before.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which sent investigators to the
town, did not know where the object came from, said spokeswoman Arlene
Murray.
"It's definitely not an aircraft part," she said. "I can't speak beyond
that as to what it might be."
Approximately 20 to 50 rock-like objects fall every day over the entire
planet, said Carlton Pryor, a professor of astronomy at Rutgers University.
"It's not all that uncommon to have rocks rain down from heaven," said
Pryor, who had not seen the object that struck the Monmouth County home.
"These are usually rocky or a mixture of rock and metal."
Pryor said laboratory tests would have to be conducted to determine if
the object were a meteorite.
[meteorite-list] New Jersey Metal Object Identified As A Meteorite
Ron Baalke baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov
Sun Jan 7 21:27:44 EST 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/nyregion/06rock.html
What Landed in New Jersey? It Came From Outer Space
By KAREEM FAHIM
New York Times
January 6, 2007
It was not from the neighborhood.
The object that tore through the roof of a house in the New Jersey
suburbs this week was an iron meteorite, perhaps billions of years old
and maybe ripped from the belly of an asteroid, experts who examined it
said yesterday.
Tentatively named "Freehold Township" for the place where it landed -
and ruined a second-floor bathroom - the meteorite is only the second
found in New Jersey, said Jeremy S. Delaney, a Rutgers University
expert who examined it.
"It's a pretty exciting find," said Dr. Delaney, who has examined
thousands of meteorites. He said that the first New Jersey meteorite was
found in 1829, in the seaside town of Deal.
The meteorite now belongs to the family whose house it ended up in, said
Lt. Robert Brightman of the Freehold Township Police Department, adding
that they had asked not to be identified.
The family has not yet given permission for physical testing of the
meteorite, but from looking at it, Dr. Delaney and other experts were
able to tell that the object it had been part of - perhaps an asteroid -
cooled relatively fast.
It is magnetic, and reasonably dense, they determined. The leading edge
- the one that faced forward as it traveled through the earth's
atmosphere - was much smoother, while the so-called trailing edge seemed
to have caught pieces of molten metal.
In fact, Mr. Delaney said, it seemed very similar to another meteorite
fragment, the Ahnighito, now on display at the American Museum of
Natural History.
"This little guy is a lot like it," he said. "It's a good candidate for
the core of an asteroid."
And the scientists are hoping that the owners of the "Freehold Township"
will make it available for testing and public viewing, like the
Ahnighito, a 34-ton chunk of the Cape York meteorite found in Greenland.
Or, they could sell it.
"The worth of a meteorite like this is almost completely determined by
where it fell," said Eric Twelker, a geologist and a dealer in
meteorites, who buys and sells perhaps a hundred of them a month on
meteoritemarket.com, his Web site. He was speaking of the premium placed
on meteorites with a compelling back story, like the football-size rock
that crashed into a parked Chevrolet in Peekskill, N.Y., in 1992.
GANNETT PHOTO: JODY SOMERS
