At the moment of impact, no one was present; however, the uninvited guest was discovered several hours later around noon by Suzy Kop upon her return home. Entering her father's chamber, the lady was astonished to find a punctured ceiling and this peculiar rock on the floor.
Suzy promptly contacted the authorities, who first ascertained the rock's non-radioactive nature before reaching out to geologists from a New Jersey institute. The experts swiftly deduced that the origin of this rock was not terrestrial, but rather an ancient meteorite. Analyses conducted in recent days revealed that this rock, with a diameter of 15 x 10 cm and weighing 0.9 kg, was an ordinary LL-type chondrite, characterized by a composition devoid of iron and other metallic elements.
Investigating this meteorite proved no easy task. The heat generated during its re-entry into the atmosphere had melted the outermost layer, and even prior to that, whilst the rock still resided in space, it was exposed to temperatures that irreversibly altered its structure and composition, rendering the identification of the chondrules within nearly impossible. Despite these challenges, an estimation of its age was obtained: this meteorite traveled through space for 4.6 billion years before concluding its journey by striking a home in New Jersey!
Credit: Hopewell Township Police Department.
Post a Comment