By Joseph Shure
News Editor
Jeremy Delaney returned from Europe early this month to find his answering machine loaded with messages.
While abroad, he'd received calls seeking his help in examining a puzzling hunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a Freehold Township home on Jan. 2.
Those who called wanted to know if the object was a meteorite.
While the task of examining potentially otherworldly paraphernalia is alien to most, it's become routine for Delaney, a research scientists with the University's Department of Geological Sciences who has developed a reputation as New Jersey's foremost expert to consult about possible meteorites.
"I guess I'm just lucky," said Delaney, who's been studying meteorites for approximately 20 years.
He attributed his reputation to word of mouth, and said people bring him a wide range of objects they hope he'll determine to be meteorites.
"Anything you can imagine, literally," he said, adding, "The only thing I haven't had is a piece of wood."
Delaney counted scrap iron, cannonballs, ore from a mine, pieces of granite (which, he said, "looks nothing like a meteorite") and sandstone among some of the items would-be asteroid collectors have brought for him to examine.
But the pear-sized, kidney-shaped object that crashed through a roof in Freehold and into the residents' bathroom turned out to be the real deal.
When alerted to the strange object's presence, the Freehold Township Police Department first contacted the Federal Aviation Administration to rule out the possibility it was merely debris from a satellite or a piece of aircraft.
Then, they called the University, which put them in touch with Delaney and his colleague Gail Ashley, a professor in the Geological Sciences Department. The two co-teach a course on Mars for non-geology majors. Peter Elliot, an independent metallurgist, helped examine the object.
As Delaney's experience would confirm, "Just because something falls through the roof doesn't mean it's a meteorite," Ashley said.
But in the case of the fall early this month, Ashley said, the object's status was not in doubt.
"It's relatively rare for humans to observe a meteorite falling to earth," Ashley said.
But it's not for lack of meteorites. She said hundreds of thousands of them fall toward the earth each year.
Of those that aren't vaporized by the earth's atmosphere, most remain unseen by humans, who inhabit a relatively small percentage of the planet's surface.
Even if a meteorite falls in a location densely populated by humans, it could remain undiscovered.
"A lot of meteorites come into the earth's atmosphere, and many hit the ground but aren't observed," she said, adding, "You could have one in your backyard and not know it."
She said the meteorite is blackish-brown and has a metallic quality. Made of iron and nickel, it is highly magnetic and weighs 377 grams, or about 13 ounces.
Ashley said the University is working with the family whose house the meteorite hit to be able to study the object further and possibly display it to the public.
The meteorite was probably formed the same time as the Solar System: approximately 4.6 billion years ago, Ashley said.
She added it's likely the rock came from the Asteroid Belt, a cluster of rocks and planetary bodies beyond Mars that circle around the sun.
Many of the iron and nickel-comprised asteroids that have hit the earth have been traced back to the Asteroid Belt, she said.
Geologists look at an object's weight, appearance and shape to help them determine its origin.
The meteorite that crashed into the Freehold Township home, like many others comprised of iron and nickel, was small but heavy. Ashley said it had a degree of density similar to that of steel. But steel from a foundry, she said, has different characteristics than the metal found in a meteorite. Namely, it's not as dense.
Meteorites made of iron and nickel, she said, commonly have an appearance that reflects the minerals of which they're composed. That is, scientists get a sense of what an object is made of by looking at its surface, which betrays the internal organization of the metals that comprise it.
Delaney said the family whose house was hit is treating the meteorite as an art object. But he said the internal structure of an iron-based meteorite, which is revealed when the object is cut open, is, "one of the prettier things" found in the Solar System.
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