meteors - up close and personal!

[snowyskiesau]

Have a look at this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/20/meteor_destroys_cottage/

Seems you don't necessarily need a telescope or even clear skies to see a meteor :)

[xstream]

Great Balls of Fire!
Armageddon eat your heart out. That's one cottage I'm glad I wasn't near.

[nightsky]

G'Day,
At his age he must have thought he was back in the 1940's ;) (and don't mention the war)

[astroron]

Most astronomers will tell you that a meteor is to cold to start a fire, anything as small as 10mm could not retain enough heat falling through the atmosphere to start a fire, so I would take their explanation with a grain oif salt, or should that be a grain of meteor:lol:

[Lee]

If that little hypersonic cold meteor (how cold could it be?) hit an LP gas cylinder etc etc..... you might end up with a flame or two.....

[astroron]

A 10mm sized object (about half the size of a $2:00 )would loose most of it's velocity by the time it had travelled through the 100 kms+ very cold atmosphere, they are travelling at aprox 60 t0 80 kms/sec when they enter the atmosphere, if they survive the journey they, being so small by the time it touches the ground it would quite cool,.
To retain enough heat to course so much damage in my opinion is very doubtful

[spacezebra]

Holy smokes - watch out!!:eyepop:

Cheers Petra

[Astroman]

Yeah I am with Ron, A while back we had a professional Astrophysisist talking about the pressures and heat involved in a meteor going through the atmosphere. Studies and experiments showed that they are quite cool when they "hit" and it was only the very outer "skin" of the rock or whatever that heats up due to friction and pressure, the central core stays reasonably cool not being effected. You would think this would be pretty major news and flashed all over the world if it were a meteor.