Meteorite Crashes Through Roof After Fiery Sky Display

Homeowners in one German city woke up with a rare problem: a meteorite-sized hole in the roof, the New York Times reports. A blazing fireball streaked across the evening sky over northwestern Europe on Sunday, dazzling thousands before at least one sizable fragment punched through a house in Koblenz and landed in an empty bedroom, officials say. DW describes the hole in the roof as "football-sized." Several other buildings in the area, including houses, were also damaged by apparent debris, Space.com reports.

The six-second light show, captured by the AllSky7 network of sky-monitoring cameras, allowed astronomers to quickly map the rock's path and narrow down where its pieces fell. No injuries were reported, and experts are calling the event scientifically valuable: meteorites can hold clues to the early solar system. Based on its brightness, the object was likely 3 to 10 feet across, said European Space Agency engineer Juan Luis Cano, who noted that rocks of that size hit Earth every couple of weeks, usually unnoticed over oceans or remote terrain. With several fragments already recovered and potentially hundreds more on the ground, meteorite hunters are now flocking to western Germany in hopes that the next prized space rock is sitting in a field.