Meteorite Crashes Through New Zealand Roof

freitasm writes "The New Zealand Herald and Stuff are reporting on a 1.3kg, four billion-year-old rock that fell through the roof of a house in suburban Auckland, New Zealand. Their insurance company will pay for the hole in the roof and couch and two holes in the ceiling. The meteorite itself, a chunk of an asteroid, could have been basketball-sized when it impacted Earth's atmosphere at 15km a second. By the time it hit the house, its velocity had probably slowed to 100-200m a second."

Comments

Re:Why was this posted?

[azzy]

New Zealand beat England in rugby, and got two early wickets against England in the cricket (though don't look like winning). There's some more NZ news for you.

Re:Could be a good thing?

[Tranzig]

The estimated value is over 10000 NZD, that's about 6000 USD or 5000 EUR. It's in the article.

Re:Insurance?

[mat catastrophe]

You would be surprised what is and is not covered under some insurance policies.

Besides, Acts of God can also sometimes be covered under insurance - after all, what's the point of wasting all that damn money on insurance if they can just turn on you and say, "Nope, that tree falling on your house last night during the freak ice storm was an Act of God" ?

So, for those too lazy to click the link above, meteors are covered the same as airplanes under home insurance, "objects falling from the sky." Now, the reason this is covered is precisely because it doesn't happen very often. Just as people on the coast pay extra for hurricane damage insurance and folks in the midwest pay extra for tornado insurance, if there were an area where meteors were common, there'd be extra clauses for meteor damage.

Insurance is, largely, a racket.

Re:Could be a good thing?

[keraneuology]

In 1954 Ann Hodges was asleep on her couch when a meteorite came through the roof and hit her, leaving a nasty bruise. The landlady of the house won ownership in court. (Sylacauga, Alabama)

Re:I'm pretty surprised by the loss in speed.

[mog007]

It's not that amazing. A large portion of the meteorite is boiled off from the heat, so not only is the atmosphere making a cushion, but it's also removing mass, thus decreasing the KE even more.

Re:why claim the insurance?

[nEoN nOoDlE]

As another reader pointed out, the odds of it being hit by a second meteorite, is exactly the same is it being hit by the first... which is slim, but another meteor isn't going to avoid the house next time because a meteor crashed there beforehand.

Re:lots of meteorite activity lately?

[kidgenius]

It's not the act of flushing that causes those to come out. There is a valve on the plane that allows for a hose to be hooked up to the plane to remove all of that "matter". Well, when one of these 2 valves goes bad, the stuff starts to leak out of the hatch on the plane. As it sits on the outside of the plane, it freezes, then will break free. I heard that one time there was a piece a little smaller than a basketball that broke free, and the engine ingested it. Needless to say, the plane was forced to land b/c the engine was severly damaged.

Also, let me say that you do not want to be the guy hooking up the hose when one of those valves is bad. You end up having to reach your arm up the hatch of the plane, and manually open the valve, and hope to god you can get yourself out of the way, and the hose in place before the "matter" starts flowing. As you can imagine, it is a pretty difficult thing to do.

Re:why claim the insurance?

[rollingcalf]

The probability of both hitting, given that A already hit, is just the probablity that B will hit.

Other posters were implicitly referring to the fact that the first one already hit, while your statement is referring to a time when none has hit yet.

ObNitPick

[The Monster]

I hate it when the media gets scientific terminology wrong. It would be incorrect to say the house was hit by a 'meteorite' (definitions taken from dictionary.com): meteorite n : stony or metallic object that is the remains of a meteoroid that has reached the earth's surface unless it's been shown that it bounced off the surface of the earth prior to punching holes in the house. I believe it would me more accurate to say that it was hit by a 'meteor': meteor n : a meteoroid that has entered the earth's atmosphere [syn: shooting star] Then, after the meteor punched the holes in the roof and couch, and came to rest, it could be accurately described as a meteorite.

Re:ObNitPick

[Long-EZ]

Meteoroid - in space or the atmosphere
Meteor - the ionized gas we see as it streaks through the atmosphere
Meteorite - once it reaches the earth's surface

We can't see a meteoroid, we see the meteor, aka "shooting star".

It doesn't need to strike dirt to be a meteorite. It became a meteorite the instant it hit the roof.

I hate it when the media gets scientific terminology wrong, but I hate it even more when the media gets it right and geeks get it wrong.

Re:ObNitPick

[JabberWokky]

I believe he's saying that the meteor hit the roof, and upon hitting the roof (and thus the surface of the earth) became a meteorite. I agree. If a kid then picked it up (big kid), and threw it, it would be a meteorite. But the first impact from space will always be a meteor hit, as it it not a meteorite until it hits.

--
Evan "Pedantics are us"

More pictures

[akeyes]

can be found here http://www.local6.com/slideshow/news/3413231/detai l.html?qs=1&s=1&dm=ss&p=news including some of the hole caused by the meteorite

Re:lots of meteorite activity lately?

[DieByWire]

Needless to say, the plane was forced to land b/c the engine was severly damaged.

If you're referring to the Northwest 727 in Florida in the latter 1980's, the right engine actually separated from the aircraft after the blue ice went through it.

Brings new meaning to 'losing an engine.'