A WOMAN has told how she was hit by a METEORITE while having coffee with a pal.

       The space rock blew through the roof before landing on the French woman’s rib - leaving experts shocked.

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       A meteorite glowing as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere Credit: Getty

       The unnamed woman was left with bruising after being hit by the meteorite on July 6 in Schirmeck.

       She told local newspaper Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace: “I heard a big ‘poom’ coming from the roof next to us.

       “In the second that followed, I felt a shock on the ribs. I thought it was an animal, a bat.

       “We thought it was a piece of cement, the one we apply to the ridge tiles, but it didn't have the colour.”

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       She took the rock – weighing around 50g - to a geologist Dr Thierry Rebmann who explained it is a meteorite made up of iron and silicon.

       Meteorites, not to be confused with meteors, are known as solid pieces of debris which typically come from the asteroid belt which orbits between Mars and Jupiter.

       The debris in meteorites typically comes from a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid.

       Dr Rebmann told France Bleu Alsace: “Finding a meteor is already uncommon, but to be in direct contact and have it fall on you, that is astronomically rare.

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       “We haven't seen that in decades in this region.”

       The major difference between meteorites and meteors is that meteors burn up before reaching the ground while meteorites can strike the Earth.

       Meteorites typically come towards Earth after a collision within the asteroid belt sends chunks flying towards us.

       Larger ones that end up hitting the moon or Mars have also been known to send smaller chunks our way.

       According to New Scientist, in 1911, a 40-kilogram boulder from Mars killed a dog in Egypt and then a boy in 1992 was hit but not seriously injured by a small meteorite.

       In 2021, a Canadian woman was nearly hit in the head with a meteorite that landed on her pillow after it smashed through her roof.