Reading Bob’s Junk Mail (yes, you should subscribe right away; I like Bob), I came across a comment that a German guy was burned when his cottage caught fire… due to a meteorite.
My Spidey-sense always tingles when I read stuff like this. It never ever pans out. Meteorites, from everything I have so far read, just aren’t hot when they hit the ground unless they are big. Little ones slow down way up in the atmosphere, and then just fall at terminal velocity. That may be a hundred or more kilometers an hour, which is fast, but not that fast.
In this article about the German guy, it says they think the meteorite that started the fire was 10 mm in size. That’s less than half an inch! Way too small to still be hot when it hit.
Witnesses say they saw an arc of fire before the cottage burned, and the article does say it happened during an annual meteor shower… but there is nearly always a meteor shower. On October 10, the night of the incident, there are actually seven different showers. Those are all minor showers (the Orionids, a bigger shower, didn’t start fro another few days).
So what was this? I doubt seriously it was a meteorite. Sounds to me that someone was playing with fireworks or something like that. It’s happened before.
If anyone hears anything more on this, please let me know.
October 28th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
It could have hit a gas line near the stove and the pilot flame could have lit it up, causing the fire…
Ok that’s stretching it a little!
October 28th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
Meteorites can be very cold inside but just out of curiosity, is there any artificial material used in spacecraft or found in old space junk that would:
A. Survive reentry?
B. Get hot?
C. Retain heat after hitting the ground?
I don’t think there is – just wondering.
October 28th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
The material in meteorites is just as variable as what you might expect in falling space debris in that as the meteorite falls the ablation process causes the molten portion to fall away regardless of the meteorite being stone or iron. That is what gives you the fireball and sky streak. What is left that remains molten but not ablated is about a millimeter or less thick. So space debris would be expected to produce the same results, a very thin molten layer that cools below any ignition temperature as it falls the final way to the ground.
October 28th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Somebody at the BAUT submitted this story the day it happened. Or maybe it was another skeptical forum, I can’t keep up. I explained to him the real facts about the temperatures of meteorites, and how big and fast it would have to be going to still be hot. Burning a cottage would be the least of a laundry list of problems.
October 28th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Old causality without a mechanism problem again: event A (benign but noticeable) happens; then (within a reasonable timespan) event B happens (spectacular, often nasty); conclusion, A caused B. Humans seems prone to this sort of associative fantasy. I could bore you all with examples (and you can probably bore yourselves thinking then up).
October 29th, 2006 at 1:50 am
The local police said they talked to an expert.
Thilo Elsner, Direktor of the Bochum Observatory said it is possible that a micro meteorite is the cause for the fire.
German News:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltraum/0,1518,443782,00.html
October 29th, 2006 at 2:00 am
Its a dpa/reuters story.
You can contact the Bochum Observartory by email:
info@iuz-bocum.de
October 29th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Sorry typo….
You can contact the Bochum Observartory by email:
info@iuz-bochum.de
October 29th, 2006 at 2:25 am
They really hide their personal mail addresses…
Closer to Mr. Elsner could be this mail adress:
office@iuz-bochum.de
October 29th, 2006 at 2:46 am
I see Laguna2 was faster than me.
This does not sound very logical to me… I mean, if a meteorite the size of a grain of sand can set fire to a building, and meteorites of this size hit Earth all the freakin´ time – shouldn´t a *lot* more buildings burn down like this?
Also, I wouldn´t put *too* much trust into “arson has been ruled out”; until I know who the “experts” mentioned are (is Velikovski still alive?) and what “extensive investigations” means, I will not accept the least likely explanation as a fact.
October 29th, 2006 at 3:31 am
The expert is Thilo Elsner, Direktor of the Bochum Observatory, or as they call themselves today, the institute for environmental and future technologies.
Actually all he said that is is possible not how likely it is.
October 29th, 2006 at 6:46 am
It should be taken with a grain of salt, remember that it has been filtered through a journalist.
October 29th, 2006 at 6:48 am
And you don’t know how well he was quoted either. John Wells, then at the University College London was asked if cows could moo in regional accents, being affected by their herders. He answered “that I thought it was highly unlikely, but that there had been serious research showing that various species of bird exhibit geographical variation in their calls. And if birds and human beings have local accents, you can’t entirely rule out that cows might too.” The next thing he knew, he was famous around the world for saying cows moo with accents…
October 29th, 2006 at 6:48 am
A meteorite ate my homework…
October 29th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Is it not possible that the meteor struck the house at the same time that the events that started the fire were taking place. I just don’t get why people assume the most complex events took place. At least it is slightly entertaining for us more reasonable people.
October 29th, 2006 at 11:05 am
They assume it because they could not find anythimg other to be true.
There where no traces for arson, no chemicals and no fireworksrocket (so no fireworks), no electrical defect or whatever. There where witnesses that saw a small glowing object falling from the sky.
Maybe a pilot dropped his cigarette?
October 29th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Speaking of pilots dropping stuff…
When I was working for an insurance company, I saw the paperwork for a case where an airplane dumped the frozen contents of its toilet, and our clients woke up to find the object had crashed through their roof and was melting on the living room carpet.
I wonder how the Bochum observatory would explain *that*.
October 29th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Please remember that the trajectory of a meteorite is affected by the incident angle, which is associated with the time of day/night. Speculation on whether or not a meteorite is hot or cold rather than observable facts is important. For example, I would expect that if a meteorite was hot enough to start a fire in a cottage, there would be some impact and some trace of the meteorite. If you find evidence of a meteorite, it is conclusive to a high degree. If no evidence is found, then the probability is very slim. A larger meteorite on a tangential trajectory might blow up and scatter hot enough pieces to start a fire. But unless you can detect evidence, you must assume it didn’t happen. None of us can examine this and to rule out hot meteorites requires physical evidence which we don’t have. Did the cottage have a flint stone in the walls, that an iron meteorite could strike and create a spark?
CBS
October 29th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Flintstone?
No, it was made of wood.
October 29th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
An object that small falling at less than supersonic speeds would certainly have far too much surface area relative to cross-section to build up any heat. Even if it was hot to begin with, it would shed heat at a phenomenal rate through that large surface area when moving through the decidedly chilly atmosphere.
My vote is local clown/child with a flare gun, roman candle, home-made mortar or some similar device.
October 29th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
This is not the first time I have heard of a meteorite hitting a house. It happened in Auckland, New Zealand a little over two years ago. The damage cost several thousand dollars to repair and there was aome traces of singeing around where the meteorite finally landed although no more than would be caused by a spark from an open fire. So even small meteorites are hot but not hot enough to cause any real damage and certainly not too hot to be handled.
October 29th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Laguna2: The cottage would probably have had a fireplace and they are rarely made of wood for obvious reasons, although Simpsons if preferable to Flintstones.
October 29th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
Sounds to me like a tracer bullet, a military round with a magnesium charge at the back so that the shooter (usually in, or aiming at, an airplane) can see where his bullets are going.
I doubt if they would be holding exercises using that kind of ordinance around populated areas, so Evolving Squid’s comment about flare guns, fireworks, etc. are probably more likely.
Airplane engines, especially older reciprocating types, use magnesium in their construction (usually cooling fins). Under the right circumstances it can catch fire and pieces fall off and burn on the way down. Of course any aircraft on fire would have been a bigger story than a house on fire.
- Jack
October 30th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Thomas, you have a false picture of a building in your head.
It was just a small hut in an allotment garden. No open fireplaces are allowed in such, for the obvious resaon that they are completely made of wood.
Something like this:
http://web3.h4104.serverkompetenz.net/pmachine/images/uploads/Schrebergarten.JPG
October 30th, 2006 at 3:21 am
I’m happen to live in the exact town (Troisdorf) where the meteorite was supposed to have ignited that cottage. However, I have missed the whole story since I was in Paris fo a science meeting during this time. (This really fits, the one time something remotely astronomically interesting happens in our little town, I’m not even in the country;-)
So, as a local resident there are certainly far more probable causes for the fire. You really have to consider several things here:
Nr. 1: Troisdorf is situated directly near a heavy frequently air port especially for cargo freights.
Nr. 2: In the vicinity of Troisdorf, exactly around the airport and the town there is a huge military training field.
Nr. 3: Maybe some young pranksters where playing around with a makeshift rocket and/or gasoline…
Really, I know these cottages or “Schrebergartenhütten” as we call them. My dictionary gives “allotment garden” as a translation for this special term.
These cottages are usally very simple wood cottages made of wallboard and corrugated iron. So they are not exactly fireproof.
Also the police said that they simply did not find something out of the ordinary which does not mean that there is nothing there to be found. Personally, knowing our local police I think that they simply did not know what to do about this incident and obviously they saw the movie “Armagedon” once too often.
So instead of admitting that they did not know what caused the fire they called the next observatory…And unfortunately the astronomer does not know too much about the physics of meteorites entering the atmosphere, which really does not suprise me…And voila, we have our meteorite burns cottage story.
October 30th, 2006 at 7:01 am
[...] “Meteorite burns a german cottage“, no Bad Astronomy. É um mal entendido muito comum, no que toca a meteoritos. [...]
October 30th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Ludmila, your story sounds a lot more plausible. It makes me crazy when people don’t look at the situation around the area. Being near an airport is interesting, but being near a military base is damning. That is far and away the most likely explanation.
October 30th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Laguna2, you are 100% right, I just saw “German man” and “cottage” and I immediately envisioned a cottage like this. If the Alps had been mentioned too, I would also have imagined a person in lederhosen yodeling next to the cottage.
I hate it when people stereo type other people, but it’s alright when I do it
October 31st, 2006 at 2:40 am
Ludmila says:
“So instead of admitting that they did not know what caused the fire they called the next observatory…And unfortunately the astronomer does not know too much about the physics of meteorites entering the atmosphere, which really does not suprise me…And voila, we have our meteorite burns cottage story.”
The assumption all astronomers are familiar with meteorites is a common one. At the UW here where I’ve taken all my meteor-wrongs (hey they were darn close, metal and all) I take them to the geology department where the meteorite expert is. The astronomy department is never sure what to make of the rocks.
charles simkins Says:
…. Speculation on whether or not a meteorite is hot or cold rather than observable facts is important. ….If you find evidence of a meteorite, it is conclusive to a high degree. If no evidence is found, then the probability is very slim. A larger meteorite on a tangential trajectory might blow up and scatter hot enough pieces to start a fire. But unless you can detect evidence, you must assume it didn’t happen. None of us can examine this and to rule out hot meteorites requires physical evidence which we don’t have….
Chuck, it isn’t like there haven’t been enough meteorite falls to already have enough evidence. I assure you, they don’t start fires short of asteroid size and maybe potentially knocking over a lantern or something.
Meteorites can knock a hole in your roof (several well documented cases) and a hole in your car (at least one famous case). Meteorites large enough to form an impact crater melt the ejecta from the crater (many examples of that in the form of tektites).
If there were smaller meteorites causing fires there would be abundant evidence. There isn’t.
October 31st, 2006 at 8:32 am
If meteorites could start fires, regular bullets hitting things would start fires all the time since they move faster than most meteorites at impact. Some neighbourhoods in the USA would be constantly aflame.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Dear Bad Astronomer,
by training field I mean actually some part of the local heathland and forests reserved for military exercises and NOT a military base.
In the meantime, I managed to find out, where exactly this incident happened and what the building actually looked like (http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/0,1518,grossbild-722522-443782,00.html).
The part of the town where the cottage is located is at least 5 km away from the training field on the other side of the town. Any bright object coming from there would have flown over heavily populated city areas. And at the time of the incident (22:38 local time) hundreds of people should have seen it and not just a few.
Especially, since one of the local witnesses said in an interview to the local TV that he saw a bright object as big as a football flying towards the horizon. See also the video in the following article:(http://www.wdr.de/themen/panorama/brand03/troisdorf__meteorit/index.jhtml?rubrikenstyle=panorama) Interstingly enough, the eyewitness did NOT mention any noise coming from the “meteor”.
So personally, I rule the military theory out. I also think, that if some ammunition misfired and went flying over the town, someone of the armed forces would have at least investigated.
According to the eyewitness, the object was as big as a football and flew over quite a distance when he observed it. Pranksters would have to be really talented to manage somehting like that.
The trajectory however is quite interestingly: The object landed near the meadows of the river “Sieg”. And the eyewitnesses were all living in the vicinity and told that the object was flying towards the meadows – meaning the object would have originated in the North seen from the river. And now, guess what is in the north direction? The airport.
This would also explain why not so many people saw it. In that case the object would have flown over relatively sparsly populated area and over some buisness parks – all deserted in the evening.
But if the object came from an airplane and was big enough to be seen across the sky, why didn’t it leave an impact crater as well? It could of course very well be, that the object appeard much bigger than it really was. Still, how can something come apart from an airplane and start a fire? Although from the look of that shed it really did not take much to start the fire.
The mystery will probably never be solved. Still, if a meteor was responsable for the fire I would at least suspect some remenants of the meteorite or at least an impact crater in the debris.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:10 pm
Ludmila said:
“…Still, if a meteor was responsable for the fire I would at least suspect some remenants of the meteorite or at least an impact crater in the debris.”
AND, I would expect we’d know about the potential for such ignition source meteorites by now. At the size described here THEY DON’T START FIRES!!!!!
Find me some literature that says I’m wrong. I’m happy to learn new things. Otherwise, the speculation is unnecessary.