Schoolboy survives direct hit by meteorite

[xnomad]

It is the Daily Mail so could be phony but nevertheless here is the article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...30-000mph.html

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Good grief. The only thing "pea-sized" about that article is the size of your brain if you actually believe it, surely?

[coldspace]

Originally Posted by troypiggo

Good grief. The only thing "pea-sized" about that article is the size of your brain if you actually believe it, surely?

It was all over the morning news, on quite a few channels. They are testing the rock but they beleive it was an iron one that about 5 billion yrs old.
This happened to someone in the states in the 70's and also a few cars and houses as well, so not impossible.
You never know, and if people don't keep an open mind about strange things then they have a pea sized brain.
Stranger things have happened.

Matt.

[sheeny (Al)]

I gather the "stain" on the road is the "smoking foot wide crater"? That's not what it looks like...

I wonder what direction he saw it coming from? Directly over head?

Al.

[Zaps]

I call shennanigans.

Pea-sized? Like, say, a small-caliber bullet? What velocity would it have for it to leave a "foot-wide crater" in hard ground? My guess is high enough to tear off any human arm that got in the way.

And to still be hot? It must have been travelling mighty fast to retain any heat after passing through the very cold upper atmosphere. If it's travelling that fast, it can only have been part of a much larger object, else it would have completely burned away before impact.

Most small objects which have survived upper atmospheric entry intact are in freefall, with a ballistic trajectory. Some have been witnessed to bounce upon impact with the ground, and often still have frost on them. For it to be otherwise, the crater would likely look a lot more like a certain one in Arizona.

This "story" is completely bogus in my opinion.

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

I'm glad the rock's OK.

[sheeny (Al)]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

I'm glad the rock's OK.

So its a good news story all round!

...besides everyone knows that these papers "are some of the best investigative journalism on the planet".

Al.

[Outbackmanyep]

You notice there is no bruising on his hand? Can't say it's "impossible" but it smells a bit like.......
Where's the photo of the crater??? You would think that if the projectile had hit "dirt" the size of the projectile to the crater would be 1/20th diameter, so the projectile you'd think would only be 15mm diameter and vaporised upon impact to release the energy required to make a crater, BUT if it was travelling at a much slower speed then how would it leave a "crater"??????

Just doesnt add up!

[GrahamL]

Ain't that the truth Al.. they always get the important stuff out to us.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...ex-change.html



I'm good with the meteorite but how did every bit of the ejected material
from the footpath miss him.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Originally Posted by coldspace

It was all over the morning news, on quite a few channels. They are testing the rock but they beleive it was an iron one that about 5 billion yrs old.
This happened to someone in the states in the 70's and also a few cars and houses as well, so not impossible.
You never know, and if people don't keep an open mind about strange things then they have a pea sized brain.
Stranger things have happened.

Oh, well if it's all over the morning news it must be fair dinkum. Sorry.

I'll take my pea-sized, closed-minded brain off to read more of the British tabloids to learn more interesting facts and true stories.

[Liz]

Interesting ... but very dodgy indeed.
Anything coming in with the speed and heat of a meteorite should have inflicted much worse damage to a tender little hand, than a minor scratch??

[marki]

Believe it or not I was actually present when a simlar incident happend at a mineral sands processing plant about 90 km north of Perth in the late eighties. The bases for a large kiln were being poured and I was chatting to the concrete truck driver who was operating the discharge lever on his truck. The next thing the guy started screaming and swearing clutching his hand hopping around like a mad man. When we finally got him calm enough to see what was causing the problem he showed us his hand which which was badly bruised and swelling up at an alarming rate. Something had hit him very hard between the thumb and forefinger, I remember looking around and there was only empty padocks as far as you could see and not a thing in the sky. The only thing I could think of was something fell from space or some fool had randomly discharged a gun into the air. In any case we never found out what hit him but the damage to his hand was a lot worse then the kid in the pic below.

Mark

[Satchmo]

The passage through the atmosphere would slow such a small object down pretty quickly methinks, having almost no momentum. If the story is true the boy is lucky not to end up with a pea sized hole in the brain.

I heard a figure of something like 500 tonnes of meteorite dust falls gently on the surface of the Earth every day, but that might be apocryphal . Can remember clearly being a very nerdy kid in 3rd grade primary, pulling magnetic particles of dirt out of the soil with a magnet and selling it to other kids as little bags of 'meteorite dust'. I guess I win some points for entrepreneurial spirit anyway

[Jen]

The rock and the scar: Gerrit was lucky to survive his close encounter!!!!!

WTF!!!!!!! i expected to see a huge rock
And well the mark on his hand i think he proberly done that falling of his push bike

[JethroB76 (Jeff)]

Other stories this issue:

"My Mums an Alien"

and

"Elvis is my accountant"

[Zaps]

Only something massive will survive atmospheric entry, and impact the Earth's surface at high velocity. Small mass objects have very little energy left once they've passed through the upper atmosphere, and therefore free-fall to the surface.

Also, it will have cooled almost completely by the time it thuds onto the ground. As stated earlier, many recent falls are discovered to be "frosty" from their passage through the very cold upper atmosphere.

For an object to hit the ground hot and hard it would need to have a large mass, in order to survive passage through the air, and an object like that won't leave only a little scar on a kid's hand!

This is all Meteoritics 101.

[leon]

Ah well it was fun to read all your answers to this mysterious incoming missile.

Leon

[ngcles]

Hi All,

I think truth was the only real casualty here.

Okay, lets assume it was a meteorite (and it might be -- can't discount that) something this small (size of a split-pea) even if it were travelling at high-speed (70km/sec) in interplanetary space, just a few seconds in the Earth's upper atmosphere would have slowed it via friction to terminal velocity (at maximum say 50m/sec = about 180km/hr) and 99.9% of the energy/monentum is already lost.

It would still have been 30-40km up at that time if not more. It would then spend probably 13+ minutes falling to Earth at terminal velocity during which time it would cool considerably (its cold up there) -- probably even become cold to the touch or icy.

It would hit the person at about terminal velocity -- and a split-pea sized rock at about 50m/s would do little damage unless it his someting partcularly soft like the eye etc.

There is no way it could leave a crater 30cm diameter on a bitumen road.

It is undoubted that people have in the past been hit and injured by or even killed by meteorites -- and they too would all have been travelling at about terminal velocity. But, the difference is the mass of the object. A 2kg piece of iron/rock travelling at 180km/hr would obviously do a lot of damage to a house/car/person. A pea-sized one? No, at most a small red mark on the skin like you've been shot with a BB gun.

A "large ball of light" -- as reported by the youngster? No, that would have occurred 40-50km up and 15 minutes before it hit him. "Enormous bang like a crash of thunder"? No, sorry, 50-odd m/sec won't do that with a pea-sized object either. I'd say he's re-constructing those things.



Best,

Les D

[astroron (Ron)]

I would say it is possible he could have been stung by the pea sized rock but the crater in the road and the bang and bright light have probably been brought in by the media to enhance the story
I think he maybe after his fifteen minutes of fame

[BerrieK]

And the 'meteorite' went Chk Chk BOOM!!