Another meteorite hits house in Connecticut, USA

A small meteorite landed on a house in Waterbury, Connecticut on Wednesday.

Experts from the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History say the meteorite crashed through the gutter and landed on the lawn below. It was about the size and shape of an avocado and weighs 1.6 pounds.

The homeowner contacted Dr. Stefan Nicolescu, mineralogy collections manager at the Peabody Museum, who had also confirmed the identity of the Wolcott meteorite from last month.

"It's not very often that this happens, that in one meteorite shower two or more buildings are hit at the same time," Dr. Nicolescu told WTNH (http://bit.ly/13mfpMX). "These are rather rare occurrences so that's what actually makes this event so much more interesting than a regular meteorite find or a regular meteorite fall." All but one of the reported meteorite falls in Connecticut have occurred in towns beginning with the letter "W," Weston and Wethersfield.

Last month, a baseball-sized meteorite crashed into a Wolcott house damaging a roof and the attic. Area police reported that several residents reported hearing loud booms that night.

The town of Wethersfield makes Connecticut history by having two meteorites hit two separate homes between 1971 - 1982. Remarkably in both cases, the homes were occupied when the meteorites came crashing through the ceilings and no one was injured.

One of the most notable metrorites fell on Dec. 14, 1807. Although it is called the "Weston meteorite," most of it fell in what is now Easton, which was founded in 1845 from 28.8 square miles carved out of Weston. Today it's believed that none or almost none of the pieces fell in present-day Weston, although pieces were found in a swath that extended from Monroe to Fairfield.

The object was sufficiently bright to illuminate fields and barns, and there were reports of something strange streaking across the sky from as far away as Rutland, Vt. The meteor broke up as it slammed into the earth's atmosphere at about 65,000 mph. Soon it seemed that Weston was a target of an artillery barrage, as dozens of rocks, one weighing 200 pounds, augered into the snow-covered fields.

According to a book by Cathryn J. Prince, of Weston, "A Professor, a President, and a Meteor: The Birth of American Science," the meteorite provided the spark that over time turned the new nation, then populated largely by people who believed in the supernatural, into a scientific powerhouse.

WTNH, News Channel 8, contributed to this story.

Source: CTPOST.COM