Rock from meteor shower found in Novato

By Janis Mara
Marin Independent Journal

Posted: 10/21/2012 05:21:51 PM PDT

This is the piece of meteorite that landed on the roof of a Novato home last week. (Provided by Leigh Blair)


Click photo to enlarge


This is the piece of meteorite that landed on the roof of a Novato home... (Provided by Leigh Blair)


A small rock that slammed into a Novato home Thursday night has been confirmed as a piece from the meteor shower that flamed over the Bay Area during the past few days, a NASA-affiliated astronomer said.


The meteorite, smaller than a fist, was discovered Saturday by Lisa Webber, who owns the home with her pastor husband, Rev. Kent Webber. The discovery was announced Sunday morning by Peter Jenniskens, principal investigator for NASA's Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance, at the Webbers' home.


"The significance of this find is that we can now hope to use our fireball trajectory to trace this type of meteorite back to its origins in the asteroid belt," said Jenniskens in the CAMS project blog. "We propose the name Novato meteorite, pending approval by the Meteorite Nomenclature Committee."


"I came home from work Wednesday night and didn't know there was a meteor shower," said Lisa Webber. "I was sitting in my kitchen and I heard this boom-badda-boom. Something hit my house. I looked in the garage and there didn't seem to be anything amiss."


It wasn't until Webber read a newspaper article Friday and discovered that the trajectory was over Novato, San Rafael and Napa that she realized the rock might be a meteorite, Webber, who is head nurse at the University of California's medical dermatology department, said in an interview.