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Has a meteorite ever hit a car or a house?

The short answer

Yes, a few times. A meteorite hit a parked car in Peekskill, USA, in 1992, and others have crashed through roofs. Nobody was badly hurt.

Most meteorites land in fields, forests, deserts or the sea, but now and then one lands somewhere surprising.

On 9 October 1992, a bright fireball was filmed by many people across the eastern United States. Part of it, a stone of about 12 kilograms, smashed into the back of a red car parked outside a house in Peekskill, New York. The owner, an 18-year-old called Michelle Knapp, heard a crash and found the meteorite under her car. The car became famous and has been shown in museums.

Other meteorites have hit buildings. In 1954, a meteorite crashed through the roof of a house in Sylacauga, Alabama, and bruised a woman named Ann Hodges, the first well-recorded case of a person hurt by a meteorite. In the 1970s and 1980s, two different meteorites hit two houses in the same town of Wethersfield in Connecticut, eleven years apart. In 1938, one went through the roof of a car in Benld, Illinois. In 2021, the Winchcombe meteorite landed on a family's driveway in England.

These events are so rare that they become famous. The chance of a meteorite hitting your house is tiny, much smaller than being struck by lightning.

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