Meteorite hits in Lorton Virginia

A small meteorite, about the size of a tennis ball or so, crashed into a Lorton, Virginia doctor's office on Monday, according to several reports including one in the Washington Post. No one was hurt, but there was some damage -- not surprising, since it must have hit at a couple of hundred kilometers per hour (it's a Hollywood myth that small rocks hit at huge speeds with flames drawn out behind them; they slow down to highway-like speeds while they are still dozens of kilometers off the ground). The Maryland Weather blog has a picture of the interplanetary interloper -- there's a clear fusion crust (the blackening of the surface from heat), which is a giveaway it's a meteorite. There were hundreds of eyewitness reports of the fireball reaching as far north as New Jersey, so the rock must have been traveling southward. There may be other pieces along ...