A meteor that streaked across Texas on Saturday afternoon produced several meteorites, including one that tore a fist-size hole in the roof of a house north of Houston, the authorities said.
No one was injured in the episode, which took place at approximately 4:45 p.m. in an unincorporated area of northwest Harris County, according to Chief Fred C. Windisch of the Ponderosa Fire Department.
The meteorite, he said, crashed through the roof of a two-story house. It hit the floor in a bedroom, where it ricocheted and struck another part of the ceiling, according to a report by KHOU-TV.
A photo provided by the Fire Department showed the rock on the floor of the residence.
Chief Windisch said it was the first time he could recall something like that happening in the area, “and I’ve been here for decades.”
Sherrie James, who lives in the house where the rock struck, shared an account of the ordeal on social media, saying that the meteorite had “unexpectedly” come through her roof and caused damage.
Ms. James, who could not be reached on Sunday, said in her post she was “grateful no one was hurt.” She created a GoFundMe page to help pay for repairs to her roof, floor and ceiling.
“We heard a big boom when I was in my bedroom, and I didn’t know what it was,” she told KHOU-TV in an interview.
Ms. James said her grandson went to check on the source of the sound and found a hole in the ceiling, and then the rock on the floor.
“‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘that looks like a meteor piece,’” she recalled telling her grandson. Ms. James then called the Fire Department.
A self-described science-fiction fan, she added that she was “definitely going to keep it” and had placed the rock in a plastic bag.
NASA said witnesses first reported seeing a “bright fireball” in the sky around 4:40 p.m. The agency said the meteor had become visible 49 miles above Stagecoach, northwest of Houston.
The agency said the fireball traveled southeast at 35,000 miles per hour before it broke apart 29 miles above Bammel, an unincorporated community in Harris County, about 18 miles northwest of downtown Houston.
The meteor, which was estimated to weigh about a ton and to have a diameter of three feet, “created a pressure wave that caused booms heard by some in the area,” according to NASA.
Weather radar showed that meteorites had been produced between the Willowbrook neighborhood in northwest Houston and Spring, an unincorporated community in northern Harris County.
According to NASA, a meteor is a meteoroid, or space rock, that burns up as it enters Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. A meteorite is a meteoroid that survives its descent through the atmosphere and hits the ground.
The agency said that many people who spotted the fireball over Texas on Saturday reported it to the American Meteor Society’s website.
Less than a week ago, another meteor rattled buildings and startled residents in parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio with a fiery streak and a loud boom.
An asteroid nearly six feet in diameter and weighing about seven tons produced that fireball, according to NASA.
Johnny Diaz is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news from Miami.
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