What type of pillow can stop a meteorite is what I'm wondering. Sure the roof may of slowed it enough but for it to still be intact from that and at that size, it would of been dense to make it that far without breaking up or burning up and I'd of expected a more substantial roof would be needed to slow it. Then the final detail, It would still be pretty darn hot.
I won't make numerical estimates here, but we can consider that:
- the piece of meteorite had already achieved terminal velocity,
- most of the remaining energy was lost on the collision with the layers of the roof and
- final collision was dampened by the pillow, mattress foam and bed structure.
By the size of of the object on the photograph, if it has approximately the same density of earth stones, the story seems 100% believable.
This NASA document explains very nicely how a series of thin shields can provide more protection than one much thicker shield layer. Of course, the velocity is much lower once in the atmosphere.
I suspect they're trading an obscene amount of space to save weight (because space). There's a reason (the reason being they tested this stuff 1.5 centuries ago) pretty much no armored vehicle or vessel uses armor with empty spaces in between.
Sounds like it may have hit the mattress before rolling between the pillows, and the photo and title are mildly sensationalizing with hitting the pillow directly.
> “…I rolled back one of the two pillows I'd been sleeping on and in between them was the meteorite."
Assuming meteors can have any initial size, speed, and entry angle, there must be some sets of those initial values such that a remaining meteorite of the size seen in these photos could go through a roof and land on a bed. It doesn't seem possible that there would be any step function where if it doesn't burn up completely and can make it through a roof it must be going fast enough to also go through a pillow.
So I'm somewhat sceptical.