Categories: Meteorites

Meteorite Smashes Through Roof of Doctor’s Office

A small meteorite that fell from the sky into a doctor's office in Virgina on Jan. 18, 2010. Credit: Linda Welzenbach/Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

A meteorite came through the roof of a doctor’s office in Lorton, Virginia, USA. No one was hurt, but a hole was punched through the roof and ceiling. “It came through the roof, through the fire wall through the ceiling and hit the floor,” said Dr. Frank Ciampi in this video from WUSA TV.

When he heard the noise, he thought a set of bookshelves had fallen down. The rock broke into pieces, but put together are about the size of a tennis ball. A planetary scientist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History, Cari Corrigan, confirmed the rock is a meteorite. She says the meteorite weighs just over a half pound (.22 kg) and was probably traveling about 350 kph (220 mph) when it struck the building.

Researchers say the meteorite is a chondrite, the most common type of space rocks that fall to Earth.

Remove All Ads on Universe Today

Join our Patreon for as little as $3!

Get the ad-free experience for life

Lorton is just outside of the Washington, DC area, and has a population of about 28,000 people.

Source: WUSA News

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/