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Meteorite Crashes Through New Zealand Roof

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wear-a-hat dept.

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."

2 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. why claim the insurance? by drg55 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Meteorites are quite pricey, just put it on ebay.
    Put the house on ebay too.

  2. I'm pretty surprised by the loss in speed. by James+A.+S.+Joyce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know that the Earth's atmosphere is approximately 100 kilometres in thickness, but the idea of an object dissipating so much kinetic energy as heat is still amazing. Nonetheless, at that speed it's going at about the same speed as a bullet from a gun so I guess it's a good thing no one was there. Luckily, though, since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity, it's a good thing it lost all but literally 0.2% of its speed.