Hopewell, New Jersey, USA – Monday, May 08, 2023, just after noon, a meteorite crashed into a house in central New Jersey. The residents were home and heard the crash, and went to find the meteorite lying on the floor. We were able to learn enough parameters of the meteor’s trajectory to produce a strewn field map, and Doppler data is available. If you are able to travel to Hopewell, there could be some meteorites waiting for you there.
The story of the meteorite crashing through the roof of a New Jersey home was widely reported in the media, but only one observation was reported to AMS.
The fireball or meteor went from top left to bottom right and looked light a huge white streak with hints of other colors within the tail with a bright white ball at the head of it before finally disintegrating.
At this time, only the main mass and a broken fragment in the same house have been found.
Search Efforts are in progress.
Type: LL6 (Unclassified)
Masses Found: 984g, 13.6
TKW: 997.6g
Updated 2023-MAY-11: Confirmed with Dr. Shannon Graham of the College of New Jersey’s physics department, that the main mass is 984 grams and has a bulk density of 3.2 to 3.3 g/cm^3.
Approximate coordinates of the find are available in this kml file:
This daytime fireball was also captured on an Earthcam in New York City, and we were able to use that observation to determine a likely trajectory. This rough trajectory solution was run through the StrewnLAB software to predict the search area shown below. Please download and review the Google Earth files below for detailed maps of the search area.
Public release of these strewn field maps will be Wednesday, May 17th.
UPDATE 2023-05-10: Initial search area posted. No hard trajectory data available, the input trajectory was designed to match the find and the Doppler. Needs some tweaking to match all the Doppler hits to the southeast, unless they represent very small fragments.
V2 UPDATE 2023-05-10: Earthcam footage from New York City was used, along with the find data, and the Doppler data, to approximate a trajectory. Confidence is fair. Doppler polygons added as a separate file. Just for fun, we label the Doppler polygons with popular baby names from New Jersey.
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Weather Data
The weather data below is sourced from weather balloons, and publicly available via NOAA’s Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA). This data is downloaded and post-processed by the StrewnLAB algorithm, to account for changing weather patterns and weather balloon drift. The plots have altitude on the y-axis, in kilometers above sea level. The wind speed below 10km has large effect onthe drift of meteorites.
The author and founder of Strewnify.com, an automotive controls engineer, with a passion for physics.
Hancock, Michigan, USA | james.a.goodall@gmail.com | +1 586 709 5888
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