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Subscribe to RSSA 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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A few years back a baseball sized one hit a lady's VW in NYC...looked like a 20mm shell hit it. Went right through it and destroyed the car. Some guy was selling his mailbox on ebay because it had been hit by a meteroite and was getting some pretty big bids. Some people will buy anything.
It sounds like they took it from the home owner. That's not right. They should get to keep it.
Look out the sky is falling, said chicken little. The big one has not got here yet.
before reading the article, i thought it was going to be about the Rock, as in movie star, coming out of the closet
Sure "cool" in the same sense that a tornado is cool as long as it doesn't blow your house to bits.
Keep it safe it might be worth some $
i live in a town called mars... can i take rocks from my yard and claim them as "mars" rocks?
is all you people think about is money and lawyers? give it to the Smithsonian and get you name in the history books. what can research tll uss about the asteroid belt. was it once a planet that self destructed? or was it some type of cataclysmic event like getting struck by a comet? probably no answers available from such a small sample, but, who knows what it might reveal.
I'd rather have the money.
either this weed is really good...or ther is a face on that meteor!!!....giggles
How lucky is that! Who would not want a chunk of space rock.
We invaded Mars, now the muslim Martian terrorists are throwing rocks at us.
God is throwing rocks at San Franfreakshow.
So should we mount it on a wall and worship it like the muslims?
I have a piece of fossilized dino poop, that happened to drop on a meteorite, and then was swallowed by an ancient crocidile, then re-pooped again, only to re-fossilze, and was wind swept on the salt flats of Utah. Now it looks exactely like a computer mouse. For sale: 50 bucks.
I also have a corn flake, shaped like a meteorite. For sale: 75 bucks.
Wrong forum, try Ebay.
Don't be fooled by all those that say this happens all the TIME!!!! The Mayans were correct! This is just a small one before the big one gets here on 12/21/2012
The Mayans don't know squat. In fact I'm very confident that nothing will happen on 12/21/12. I believe what the bible said reguarding "No man knows the date nor the time" the fact that they say it will happen on that day assures me that it won't. Now, it could happen the day before or perhaps the day after But it wont be on that day.
The mayans just liked keeping track of stuff, then they ran out of ink.
@Matilda Tuscany Paul << ~~~>> Careful what you wish for. I once saw a photograph of a woman who had actually been hit by a meteorite.
I seen that too. It was an animated movie called Monsters VS. Aliens. lol
Wednesday evening I saw a meteor fly over our house in Fort Worth, TX. Not sure of the time but it was in the atmosphere. First time of have seen one then to see the store pretty cool
I know she should never sell that house. It has to be the safest place to go now. I mean what are the chances of it being hit by another meteor?
LOL, God throwing rocks,,,,,
Or pissing kidney stones.
Too bad it wasnt big enough to take all of San Fransisco out with it
Suffer, boy.
What God said
Depending on the type, it is worth big bucks on eBay. CHA-CHING!!!!
Why the automatic assumption the rock came from the asteroid belt or Mars? The timing would suggest it's debris from Halley's Comet, since we just experienced the Orionids meteor shower, which originates from the Comet.
"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."
Please don't tell me this will be paid for by our taxes.
It's called "science". You'll learn about it when you start school.
Don't worry about it. Go watch TV.
dog, a lot of useless crap is done in the name of science. You pay for it. Go back to your bridge.
54sucks: And a lot of valuable discoveries are made. If you don't understand it, you shouldn't criticize it.
There's more to life than obsessing about octomom, Jersey Shore, or who killed a teenager. You clearly don't appreciate science. Your loss.
Einstein would have you killed if he knew you were using his picture.
And yes, I know he's dead. But I also know you anti-science types believe in ghosts.
dog, Albert Einstein's research gave us the nuclear bomb. Is that one of the valuable discoveries you're talking about?
True, science has made many valuable discoveries. But science should be funded by private money where accountability and results are required, not taxes where NO accountability exists and psuedo scientists fatten their wallets on the taxpayer's back by researching crap that will have no practical value for anyone. Tell me dog, knowing which ateroid belt this particular pebble came from will benefit who? Answer? Nobody.
Finally, Einstein is indeed dead, but God is not. So I would be more worried about that if I were you.
54buick: Actually, I'm going to say yes, the atomic bomb was one of the valuable discoveries of science. I would also like to point out that, while Einstein developed e=mc2, he did not, in fact develop the atomic bomb. What his discovery allowed was scientist to develop the atomic bomb based on Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence. This also opened the door to alternative power sources like nuclear power. Secondly, on this topic, here’s a question: How long do you think the War would have dragged on without its development?
I would also like to point out that religion takes in more money, every day, than any scientific endeavor. The "pay your way out of hell," mentality has been a major player in economic structure for centuries. Seen a cathedral lately? It's like a magic machine, put a quarter in and see what else gets gilded in gold. There is no accountability in religious donations, which is made obvious by many things; the first that comes to mind is that in Italy, the seat of Catholicism for the world, there are close to two million children living in poverty. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/04/italy-has-europe-s-highest-percentage-of-children-in-poverty-says-unicef.html)
Personally, I would much rather my tax dollars went to scientific endeavors than the subsidizing of “religious institutions”. But I don’t get a say either, so there you are. Oh and before you accuse me of being an atheist or a godless heathen or some other nonsensical appellation, please note you do not know me nor of my beliefs and that my beliefs do not fall into either of those descriptions.
Yes, one of them. Along with his general and special theories of relativity. And a whole lot of other things you'll never understand.
There's only one asteroid belt.
This is what I'm talking about... you should have stayed in school. And taken a science class or two.
Shirley, I didn't say he invented the bomb. I said his research lead to the development of the bomb. Big difference.
I totally agree with your comments about religion.
dog, I mis-typed about the asteroid belt. You can go back under your bridge now. You're stinking up the library.
no, that would be you and your anti-science, religious, neo-con nuttery
Ok so a decent sized meteorite traveling a bajillion miles only dents the roof of the house.......... this must be a scandal cause it should have gone right through the structure as though it did not exist.
As someone mentioned earlier, the atmosphere slows it way down while it is in the process of burning. You need to go back to first grade and learn some science.
How could you find a rock that small in your yard?You just happen to carry a magnat around with you just
incase you run upon a meteorite?I do!!!And my neighbor just happenes to be a rocket scientist too!!!RIGHT
Funny enough, my neighbor does actually have a dual degrees in Astrophysics and engineering... so I guess technically he would be a "rocket scientist".