A fireball soaring through the sky at 35,000 mph turned into a meteorite and smashed into a woman’s home in Houston, Texas, on Saturday night.
The Meteorite Hits
The meteorite struck the property of Sherrie James, ripping through the roof of her home before landing on her daughter’s bedroom floor.
“I was like, oh my goodness. I just didn’t know what it was, and I saw the rock,” James told Fox 26. “The first thing that came to my mind was, it’s a meteor,” she said. “It’s very heavy and it doesn’t look like cement or a normal rock or anything.”
Initial Confusion
Initially, fire chiefs thought the object might have been debris from a plane. However, they later returned with an update, confirming that the meteor exploded over northern Houston, and fragments of it had come down, including the one that hit James’ home.
NASA Confirms Meteor Sighted
NASA confirmed the meteor sighting in a social media post, stating that Texans witnessed the bright fireball on March 21, at 4:40 pm CDT.
According to NASA’s post:
“Current data indicates that the meteor became visible at 49 miles above Stagecoach, northwest of Houston,” the alert said. “It moved southeast at 35,000 mph, breaking apart 29 miles above Bammel, just west of Cypress Station.”
The meteor, which weighed about one ton and had a diameter of three feet, broke apart in the sky, creating a pressure wave that caused booms heard by some in the area.
Meteorite Fragment Size
Ponderosa Fire Chief Fred Windisch shared that the fragment of space rock that crashed into James’ home was about the size of his hand, he told CBS News.
Space Debris Trends
This incident comes just days after another space rock event. On Tuesday, a 7-ton asteroid flying at 45,000 mph exploded over northeastern Ohio, creating a sonic boom that shook nearby houses.
