What could be a piece of Halley’s Comet plummeted to Earth and punched a hole in the roof of a family home on Monday – but luckily no one was hurt.

The rock, thought to be a meteorite, landed in Suzy Kop’s family home in New Jersey at 1pm local time, according to CBS News.

Kop said the rock fell from the sky and through the roof of her father’s bedroom – but at first she thought someone had thrown it into the house.

‘I did touch the thing, because I thought it was a random rock, and it was warm,’ she said.

Police attended the house to check on the family and scan the house for possible residues or radioactivity.

‘They were afraid that, you know, because it fell from the sky, was it radioactive? Could we have a type of residue on us?,’ she said. ‘So they scanned us and everything came back clear.’

A Hopewell Town Police statement read: ‘A metallic object thought to be a meteorite struck the roof of a residence located on Old Washington Crossing, Pennington Road. The ranch style home was occupied at the time but there were no injuries reported.

‘The object, which is described as approximately 4” x 6”, is oblong in shape and appears metallic. It penetrated the roof, the ceiling, and then impacted the hardwood floor before coming to a rest.’

The force confirmed it was working with other agencies to identify the object. The team added it could be related to the Eta Aquariid meteor shower currently lighting up the night skies. An annual event between mid-April and late-May, it is caused by debris left in the wake of Halley’s Comet.

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, highlighted the rarity of the event.

‘It’s been running around in space all that time and now it’s come to Earth and fallen in their laps,’ he said, speaking to CBS. ‘For it to actually strike a house, for people to be able to pick up, that’s really unusual.’

Meteors – pieces of space debris including dust and rocks that burn up in the atmosphere – hit Earth constantly. Avid stargazers can expect to see several meteors an hour on a regular night. 

Meteors that survive the fiery passage through the atmosphere and land on Earth are known as meteorites. Thousands of meteorites hit the planet every year, but are rarely noticed, mostly falling in the oceans or uninhabited areas.

There are no official records of anyone having been killed by a falling meteorite, although a woman in Alabama was struck on the thigh after one crashed through the roof of her house.

However, several historical accounts appear to show unlucky deaths as the result of meteorite strikes – including the theory that a meteor exploding over what is now Jordan caused the biblical destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

More recently, a meteor the size of a house exploded over central Russia in 2013, causing extensive damage and injuring hundreds of people. Travelling at 11 miles per seconds, the Chelyabinsk meteor glowed 30 times brighter than the Sun as it streaked across the sky.

In 2021, a meteor was seen blazing across UK and Europe before a fragment of it landed on a driveway in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire.

MORE : Don’t miss the Eta Aquariid meteor shower, which will peak tonight

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