Meteor chunk falls on Calif. home

A California woman found a chunk that was from a meteor spotted last week. NBCNews.com's Katy Tur reports.

A chunk of meteorite struck the house of a San Francisco Bay Area resident, landing in her backyard, after a meteor streaked through the sky on Wednesday evening.

Lisa Webber found the 2-inch rock, weighing 63 grams, in her backyard on Saturday after reading an article in the local paper about the meteorite.


She remembered hearing a strange noise on Wednesday, but thought that it was an animal, SFGate.com reported. After finding the chunk on Saturday, along with a dent on her roof, she and a neighbor’s son put a magnet to the rock and the two stuck together.

“It's just science -- and it's cool," Webber, of Novato, Calif. told SFGate.com. "It's wonderful. It's like the heavens coming down, and history and this thing probably came from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter -- I mean, how cool is that?"

Investigators at the non-profit SETI Institute inspected Webber’s find and declared it authentic.

NBCBayArea.com: Wednesday's meteor falls on North Bay home

"The significance of this find is that we can now hope to use our fireball trajectory to trace this type of meteorite back to its origins in the asteroid belt," said Dr. Peter Jenniskens, a SETI Institute investigator.

Jenniskens and his crew believe that larger pieces of the meteor are out there and hope to find others. 

NBC News staff contributed to this report.

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Come on! I thought from reading the headline that this was a 5-10 foot meteorite...it turned out to be a miniscule 2-inch rock??. Where is the story here? Don't the lying, biased, heads-up-Blowbama's-a$$es have any other prevarication and slander to report?? This is outrageous.

    Reply#135 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:18 PM EDT

    What are the odds of your home getting hit by a meteorite? And I don't think a 2" long meteorite is going to fetch that much from any collectors or on e-bay. I found one about that big in Antarctica in the Dry Valleys and it's just a paperweight in my office.

    • 1 vote
    Reply#136 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 4:36 PM EDT

    Don't let SETI get PETA involved, it will give a whole new meaning to an alien pet rock LOL

      Reply#137 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:35 PM EDT

      Interesting story. I had an experience about one month ago at about ten in the morning. I was sitting outside having coffee (no it wasn't spiked), and I heard something above that didn't sound like a plane. I looked up and saw a rock-like object maybe 50 feet or more above my head (I'm not a great judge of distance). Unfortunately I was the only one in the household outside at the time. We live in a very rural area, and so far no luck finding it. We've been trying to search an area in a grid pattern. We also thought it could be space junk, but it looked more rock-like.

        Reply#138 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:42 PM EDT

        You ARE a terrible judge of distance. At 50 feet above the ground, it would be coming down almost vertical. So if it was that close to the ground when it went over your head, you would have EASILY seen it land because it would have landed withing a few dozen feet of you.

          #138.1 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:29 AM EDT

          En I sez to myself.. dang that just caint be no chillen throwin rocks next door?

            #138.2 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:22 AM EDT
            Reply

            The entire Pacific coastline is about ready to enter its final thrust...SF and LA are not only "sanctuary cities" welcoming our invaders while forcing the public to pay for gangs, diseas, crime or NUMBERS USA...flowing flooding degrading all; but SF is home to the faggat magots...specials who evoke their "beastiality parades" openly...defy everything for their perversions...

            ...

            • 1 vote
            Reply#139 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:22 PM EDT

            Stop...You the reason why some species parents need eat there young

              #139.1 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:02 PM EDT

              stop, you are an absolute freaking idiot, GTF out of my country

                #139.2 - Tue Nov 6, 2012 10:30 PM EST
                Reply

                Sounds like some one up in the sky just got his rocks off, it was a quicki!

                  Reply#140 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:12 PM EDT

                  The fed's will come and confiscate it at gun point and if she doesn't give it up the fed's will murder her for reason of national security. FACT.

                    Reply#141 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:38 PM EDT

                    You do realize that writing FACT on something that obviously ISN'T a fact makes you look foolish, right?

                    • 1 vote
                    #141.1 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:30 AM EDT
                    Reply

                    Looks contaminated with god know what...........

                      Reply#142 - Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:40 PM EDT

                      Andromeda Strain! :)

                      • 1 vote
                      Reply#143 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:44 AM EDT

                      Great Movie CFIRST

                        #143.1 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:36 PM EDT
                        Reply

                        "I heard a funny noise but I had such a heavy toke of my "meds" last night I thought it must be my boyfriend fooling around with his boyfriend, or maybe Santa Clause came early this year then when I woke up and found this little alien in the yard I said to myself hey, this will barter for a good baggie of meds".

                          Reply#144 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:20 AM EDT

                          Most of those space rocks are worth quite a few BUCKS!!!!!!!! Lucky family, and I'm glad that no one was hurt (except the roof)! Good luck !!

                            Reply#145 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 10:24 AM EDT

                            A flying chumk of money NICE!

                              Reply#146 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:34 AM EDT

                              Any meteorite that just bounces off a roof isn't much of a meteorite.

                                Reply#147 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:58 PM EDT

                                THE GEOGRAPHICALLY CHALLENGED

                                The headline on this article is correct. The headlines listed at the bottom of many articles on NBCnews.com indicate the meteor fell in San Francisco. NOT!! Novato is at the north end of Marin County, quite a ways from San Francisco. This bit of geographical ignorance is trivial but it also carries over to many headlines dealing with the election. If the whole article is not read, the error can be anything but trivial.

                                  Reply#148 - Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:16 PM EDT

                                  ahh, that s the neighbor that s throwing charcoal briquets over again

                                    Reply#149 - Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:07 AM EDT

                                    I suppose those two dudes on TV just hunt meteorites for recreation. It can't POSSIBLY be that lucrative, can it?

                                    Worthless little nickel iron junk!

                                      Reply#150 - Thu Oct 25, 2012 6:42 PM EDT

                                      " I left my metorite............. In San Francisco".........

                                        Reply#151 - Thu Oct 25, 2012 6:44 PM EDT
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