I see a lot of "meteorite hits X" stories here at Bad Astronomy Central, and the vast majority turn out to be wrong. However, few ever turn out to be the real thing, it looks this time we have the real thing.
Actually, this story is similar to the last real one (in which a metallic meteorite hit a house in New Jersey), except this time it was in Indiana. The object crashed through a window at a steep angle and high speed (60 milers per hour or 100 kph), and is somewhat smaller than a fist. It looks like a meteorite to me, but one picture isn’t enough to tell. You really need to analyze it and see what it’s made of; a high concentration of iridium, for example, is a clincher. That’s very rare to find on Earth, but it’s common in metallic meteorites.
This article at WJBC has a great image that shows the meteorite and the damage it did. After crashing through the window, it hit a computer desk and punched a hole clean through it. Meteorites don’t hit all that fast, but an object made of nearly pure iron moving at 100 kph will do some serious damage.
Follow up on these stories never happens in the press. I’ll try to remember to email some of the experts named in the articles to see if they have more info in a few days.
Man. I’d love to have this happen to me (as long as it misses my family and my computer. And my TV). Meteorites with known, witnessed falls — and that hit a familiar object — fetch a fair price. But I probably wouldn’t even sell it! It would be the centerpiece of my meteorite collection, in fact. Too cool.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
100kph? I’d have thought that an object that dense would have a higher terminal velocity than that, even one that small.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
“But I probably wouldn’t even sell it!”
Not even for a million billion?
March 5th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
“I’d have thought that an object that dense would have a higher terminal velocity than that, even one that small.”
I’m pretty sure density and mass/weight have nothing to do with terminal velocity. It’s size and shape if I’ve got it right. I’m not sure, I defer to bigger brains.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Ibrahim, I think it’s the ratio of mass to cross-sectional area that determines terminal velocity, so density does enter into it. Hence the relative falling speed of a hammer and a feather, in air. (In a vacuum, the terminal velocity is infinite, so falling objects continue to accelerate until they hit the ground, as was convincingly demonstrated in the big vacuum chamber at Area 51 during the “moon landings”
Thomas, aren’t you supposed to extend your pinkie, point it at the corner of your mouth, and rotate it back and forth when you ask that question?
March 5th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Of course Buzz is right *Smacks forehead*. Mass always enters into falling, I was thinking wind resistance. Silly me.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I wonder if there are any platinum meteorites? ie, have any such ever been found and identified as meteorites?
Oh, goody, wouldn’t having a chunk of that go a long way toward starting a space, precious metals rush???
I once had a tektite and thought it so cool I could hold a piece of the moon in my hand.
So many people now. So many places for meteorites to land and be seen.
Wow, I wonder if I should get out my catchers glove???
Gary 7
March 5th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Oopsie! Phil, check that media link again…and either your geography or typing. That rock hit the Bloomington here in the Land of Lincoln, not the Hoosier state. That’s 150 miles or so that might make a difference in analyzing the trajectory.
March 5th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Meteorites hitting houses is becoming more common it would seem. 2 1/2 years ago the same thing happened in New Zealand and this was the first incident I remember hearing about.
I wonder if there are any cases of meteorites hitting people? I dare say this would be fatal.
March 5th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Okay that’s all well and good, but I think the more interesting story regarding meteorites hitting things is the SciFi channel’s new ‘movie’ (I can barely call it that) about a meteor(ite) hitting the moon and making it rain down on earth. Earthshock is the name of this newest piece of … er… schlock? Nah, it rhymes… let’s go with ‘pile of fetid dingo’s kidneys.’
I expect a full review, Dr. Plait!
Besides… it’s got Uber Christian, Adam Baldwin!
Brian, if we were lucky a meteorite would hit SciFi channel execs AND Adam Baldwin for this movie. If that happens I will believe in a just and loving God.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Meteorites hitting houses is becoming more common it would seem.
Well, there are a lot more houses to hit these days.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:19 am
Correction: STEPHAN?STEVEN? Baldwin… sorry. Adam Baldwin is actually cool. He was Jane in Firefly after all.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:24 am
If it strikes the computer, does it become a “Luddite”? Ouch!
March 6th, 2007 at 1:26 am
I would not include TV in the list of things to miss…
March 6th, 2007 at 1:47 am
I doubt a platinum meteorite would spark a space precious-metals-rush.
Someone once stated, in order to illustrate the cost of space travel, that, even if solid gold bars were floating in orbit, it would be too expensive to get them. Given that it costs ~1.5 grams of gold to launch 1.0 grams into orbit, I’d guess that’s about accurate.
Of course, it’s a simplification. You could just get into space and “de-orbit” each orbiting gold bar and catch it on a giant trampoline on the ground.
Anyway, our technology is still a looong way from being able to profitably mine space.
But one day…
March 6th, 2007 at 3:38 am
Frankly, it does look like a baddly battered chunk of iron girder. It is nearly flat and there’s a very suspicious rectangular cross section to the right side in the photograph. When I saw it, I thought: “Scrap metal”, though I’m not an expert in meteorites.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:21 am
Not sure catching a lump of gold with a trampoline would be all that effective. It causes a body falling on it to bounce, and at a so-called terminal velocity of 100kph, would just about re-launch it! Of course, not quite, but it will come down in the next county, hopefully on another trampoline. So we need a series of tramps across the state.
On another comment, there is some confusion as to that actual terminal velocity. It seems to me that an object falling vertically, is doing that exactly. And at that velocity, which would be very slow, compared with a direct hit from a meteor coming straight in, ie, from directly overhead. The latter would not appreciably be slowed down compared with an angled shot coming in from over the horizon which would have to pass through a much greater amount of atmosphere.
So I say this meteorite arrived as a simple falling object, after its momentum was arrested while still in mid-air, though much closer to the ground, and its velocity then determined by simple gravity, and air resistance, plus the usual mass/density and maybe the surface which may, or may not peal or burn off, depending on the actual material involved. I also assume that the original was large enough not to have been burnt up in the first encounter with the denser atmosphere.
Bit of a worry though, that it still managed to destroy some perfectly good equipment, furnishings and part of the house. If it had struck somebody, I wonder if the insurance company would have paid out on the policy, or instead cited, “Act of God”?
Ivan.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:48 am
“So we need a series of tramps across the state.”
To find an ample supply of tramps, one need only hang out in certain neighborhoods.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:16 am
“Ian Says:
Oopsie! Phil, check that media link again…and either your geography or typing. That rock hit the Bloomington here in the Land of Lincoln, not the Hoosier state. That’s 150 miles or so that might make a difference in analyzing the trajectory.”
Yeah, unfortunately, the Bloomington, Indiana, area has other things falling out of the sky into houses. This was closer to my house than I like. (And completely off topic…)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256688,00.html
Regarding the economics of mining space, I thought the point was to harvest the materials for use “up there”. If you have the fabrication facilities in orbit or on the moon, it seems obvious that it would be cheaper to bring the materials there for processing rather than bring them to earth, process them, then take them back up for use.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:43 am
Once we get our first space elevator built, won’t the cost vs profit issue all but vanish? With the ability to ride up and down on a carbon fiber through the atmosphere, all that’s left is getting to and from the mine, which would use a lot less fuel (even less since the craft won’t need to be equipped for a firey re-entry or carry fuel for takeoff).
March 6th, 2007 at 6:31 am
OT, but this morning, ~6am, on CNN, the, uh, meteorologist (Chad Myers, maybe?) was covering yesterday’s Indonesian earthquake, and he attributed it at least in part to the recent full moon. Now, you have talked about how the sun and moon combine to cause crustal “tides” of a sort before, but is it logical for the, um, weather man to blame a large earthquake on the moon?
March 6th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Phil: Within a few weeks after I was elected to our village board in Park Forest, IL, meteors hit. One went through the ceiling of our police station, and a few others entered resident’s homes. We ended up with Chicago news stations at our village board meeting, and people coming from all over the United States looking for fragments. I believe one large fragment sold for in excess of $20,000, which hopefully was enough to cover the deductible for the hole in the ceiling. Our village donated the fragments that came to the Chicago Field Museum. There is some coverage here. It was quite a ride for a while.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:11 am
The easiest way(most cost effective) to retrieve materials from space was also delineated by Dr. O’Nielle(of the Space Studies Institute). Just use solar energy(heat) to melt material in free fall, infuse it with micro bubbles of any gas(like nitrogen), shape it into a shuttle cock, with the center of gravity in the head of the shuttle cock. With a low mass density, the shuttle cock will de-orbit rapidly, disapating heat over the large surface area. The gas infused metals would then float on water and could be retrieved from the surface of the ocean, even if broken into small pieces,,,
Dang, Dr. O’Nielle was really smart,,,
There is a development project afoot, under the auspices of the US navy, to build a small, two mile diameter magnetic launch track, to accelerate small(10 kg) payloads to orbital velocity. The projected launch cost (for 3000 payloads/year) would then come to about $ 189.00/kg. Pretty darned cost effective, especially when compared to the space shuttle, which, as I recall, runs about $100,000/kg.
However, a real “gold” rush into space would only depress the cost/value of gold in the earth market, just as it did to the Spanish economy in the 1700s.
Yes, the ideal is to use material resources in situ(in space). The most cost effective material to return to earth would be energy(and possibly food, as refined protien/fats/carbos), but it is possible to return other materials to earth in a cost effective fashion. After all, it’s all downhill,,,
As far as the “meteorite” is concerned, I agree, it looks like a piece of steel girder. Maybe a chunk picked up by a tornado and deposited miles away from the source???
Gary 7
March 6th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Am I right if that is the first time a computer gets hit by something from outer space? As far as I remember no human was ever hurt or killed this way in recorded history, right? Many homes, and a car, that I remember: the ‘Peekskill’ meteorite of 1992. But that car had about the surface of a small house… But a PC? That would be the closest to an intelligent being being hit by a meteorite or something, pending the PC to be or not to be a AI-being of course.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:00 am
There’s at least one recorded instance of a human injured by a meteorite. A lady some decades ago incurred a large bruise on her torso.
As far as I’m aware this is the first time that a meteorite (assuming that it turns out to be one) damaged a PC on someone’s desk. On the other hand, PCs themselves have visited all sorts of (mental) injury to deskbound users over the past 25 years.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:04 am
“In a vacuum, the terminal velocity is infinite…”
I’m pretty sure that even in a vacuum there’s an upper limit to velocity.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Brian Says:
I wonder if there are any cases of meteorites hitting people? I dare say this would be fatal.
See the following link for info on a meteor that struck a woman in Sylacauga Alabama in 1954. It was not fatal. It was reported to be the first recorded incident of a meteor striking a human. I believe the meteor is on display at the Tuscaloosa campus of the University of Alabama in the Natural History Museum; at least it was in the mid 70’s.
http://www.xenophilia.com/zb0005.htm
March 6th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Mark Martin, maybe I should have said something like, ” … need a *line* of tramps across the state.” Basically I dislike using short names for things, and the vernacular seemed more appropriate then, leaving myself open . But then sometimes I like to play the straight man in this comedy. (Not necessarily a homage to Chaplin.)
Ivan.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:08 am
The “meteorite” looks like chocolate from a James Randi Amazing Meeting.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:11 am
“Meteorites with known, witnessed falls — and that hit a familiar object — fetch a fair price.”
So if I find a metallic meteorite one day, I should bring it home, and when nobody is looking, hurl that sucker through my window to have it hit something interesting in my house. How much value might that add to my “find”? Oh man, I could sell whatever objects it hits as well. Hey, I know! $$$ I’ll have it hit a bunch of spoons. That way, I can sell all my bent spoons. I’d be just like that psychic ass… whatshisface.. I’d be a total fraud, only my scheme would be much more interesting.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:21 am
That meteorite can hit all of my computers and appliances.
Meteorites are valuable. Ones that are witnessed to fall are extremely valuable. Ones that hit houses and cars, or even people, are even more valuable than that.
I’d rather have the money.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:23 am
I wonder if insurance covers meteorite damage.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:44 am
I am watching to see what happens when they have the University of Arizona analyze it; UofA has one of the most highly regarded departments of meteorite study in the nation. Small wonder when they are in the same state as Meteor Crater!
The NJ fall never was, to the best of my knowledge, properly analyzed by someone versed in meteorites. This fall looks odd, because of the trajectory the meteroite would have had to follow to “come in a window” (!) and because meteorites don’t generally come pre-rusted.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Many home insurance policies do cover meteorite damage, either explicitly or by implicit inclusion within some clause. At the very least it would be an “act of God”, as many policies say to represent incidental damage from natural events.
Policies also sometimes will cover damage due to falling pieces of satellites. I recall that this question came up when Skylab was about to de-orbit in summer 1979. A report I saw on TV clarified this question for viewers who had inordinately high fears that their house would be the one to get clobbered.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Yeah but didn’t a piece of Skylab or somesuch strike a cop in Australia, killing him?
March 6th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Clearly, I need glasses, it wasn’t a cop, it was a cow.:D
March 6th, 2007 at 10:47 am
When I bought my little Sikhote-Alin meteorite being fairly distrustful as I am, I did the home tests and compared it to lots of pictures on the Internet. I would love one to harmlessly land in my house, and I wouldn’t sell it either. (Well, maybe not…) I love the heaviness of it, and it looks like shrapnel.
Gary, I almost bought a Texas tektite – they’re found in a nearby county to Houston – and they’re cool, too. But I was in a magnetite mood.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I meant to say “magnetic.” I bought a magnatite, too.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Just to clarify this “terminal velocity” thing, it’s not one speed, but a continuum of speeds depending on the local conditions. It is defined as the velocity when the accelerating force equals the retarding force.
In the case of something falling vertically in the Earth’s atmosphere, the accelerating force is the weight, or F=mg. The retarding force is aero drag, which is F=.5*rho*V^2*Cd*A where “rho” is the density of air, “V” is the velocity, “Cd” is the drag coefficient and “A” is the cross sectional area in the direction of motion. Terminal velocity is when the two “F”s equal each other, so just rearrange and solve for “V”.
You can see, though, that none of those terms are really constant. The force of gravity increases slightly as it falls, and the density of the air increases rapindly (and non-linearly) as altitude decreases. The mass may decrease if there are still chunks ablating off, which would also affect the cross sectional area. It could also change the Cd.
In the case of a meteor that has finished ablating (no more changes in mass, shape or area) and close to the ground (constant “g” and “rho”), a mass of 5 Kg, a Cd of .5 and an area of .01 m^2, a rough back-of-the-envelope calc says about 125 m/sec. For those of us in the US, that’s about 450 mph.
That’s a bit higher than mentioned in the article, but I’m within the same order of magnitude
- Jack
March 6th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I’m just waiting for the meteorite to be identified as a fried, flattened Hasselblad…
March 6th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
“but I’m within the same order of magnitude”
I’m suddenly reminded of Enrico Fermi, I don’t know why…
————————————————————–
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem
March 6th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I don’t know if it counts, because they were hit by the blast, not by the meteorite itself, but several people were severely injured by the Tunguska meteor. I don’t know if anyone actually died of their injuries. There was an article in Sky & Telescope a few years ago about it. Nobody went to investigate for about 15-20 years, but they did eventually interview the local people. I remember wondering at the time whether anyone was killed and not being able to tell from the article since the injuries sounded severe enough to require hospitalization (multiple compound fractures, various internal injuries), but there were no hospitals for hundreds if not thousands of miles, and no transportation.
Other than that, I don’t think there is a confirmed documented case of anyone ever being killed by a meteorite (or by falling space junk, despite “Northern Exposure”.)
March 6th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
No one has asked this yet – frankly, I am surprised.
The WJBC coverage I see on the link says that the object is “twice as heavy as a common rock”
I am just trying to figure which pieces of leavirite in my yard are “common”
March 6th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
>The NJ fall never was, to the best of my knowledge, properly analyzed by >someone versed in meteorites.
Not so…the Freehold meteorite was confirmed by three geologists from Rutgers and a metallurgist. Certainly this looks like an odd meteorite, but one low-res image on a web page doesn’t make for good identification. I was fooled by images of the Freehold meteorite – it looked like a piece of slag, but turns out it was real.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Thanks all for your inputs.
I hadn’t thought of Tunguska! Must have assumed it should have been all empty Siberia over there, because it took 20 years to just GET there. Must be the old brain implants from childhood.
Anyway good to hear nobody got killed so far. Though at the calculated speeds, even a small pebble would go right thru a body (if outdoors) – shiverrrs, one never ponders about that when lyin’ on the beach…
Buzz, I take it you mean, despite the meteorite in “Northern Town” iso “Northern Exposure” right?
March 7th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Jack; thanks for the “tour de force” calculations. I can see so much better now. (There was supposed to be a big cheesy Smiley here but I didn’t get it to work, oh well, nevermind). But with that many variables plugged in, I’m surprised you achieved any reasonable result. Mind you I thought the accepted Terminal Velocity, (maybe it was for a falling Human body, ie, a parachutist before the ripcord thing), was about 125 mph, about 200 kph. I understand that a small, dense and relatively compact object would, at lower altitude, be travelling at a considerably faster pace.
But three times as fast? Well, maybe….
I do appreciate your time to try to educate us.
Ivan.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Kroosing -
The US TV show “Northern Exposure” had a character who had a series of boy friends who all died in bizzare ways. One of them was struck and killed by a piece of space junk.
March 8th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
This item reminds me of a similar incident near Chicago…
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050724.html
In that case it looked like the meteorite actually hit somebody’s computer. Can you imagine having to go to school the next day and explain to the teacher that “I DID do my homework but then a huge space rock smashed through my roof and destroyed it!”
Not sure if we’re allowed to put links in here so if above link doesn’t work check out APOD for July 24, 2005.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:23 am
I’ve been worried about the rust thing as mentioned much earlier. Though I don’t really think it is the case this time, but who knows? Could a piece of space flotsam, especially a remnant of some poor planet or even supernova, principally iron based, be caught up in a comet for, what, a few years or even millenium, could it not be expected to show signs of rust, given the abundance of water in the “dirty iceball”?
Who can convince me otherwise?
Ivan.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:30 am
Doubts are starting to rise. Apparently, there was a woodchipper about 1000 feet away:
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=5264
March 13th, 2007 at 9:52 am
What’re the odds of getting hit by a small meteor? This has gotten worried now about my family.
Should I worry?
May 14th, 2007 at 7:41 am
A belated follow-up: oops turns out the ‘Freehold Meteorite’ was space junk! Turns out some stainless steel contains fair amounts of nickel and is magnetic. The Museum of Natrual History in NYC confirmed it was not a meteorite a few days ago.
(In response to the last two replies – rust occurs in the presence of oxygen, so no you wouldn’t expect a freshly fallen meteor to be rusty (and irons are not generally associated with comets anyway). As far as getting hit by a meteor, don’t owrry about it – you’re much mroe liekly to be killed in a car accident or falling off aladder or down a flight of stairs!)
June 25th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Thanks Kevin, but I distinctly recall from long ago on a trip to the local museum where various meteorites, at least one that had been cut in half and it was captioned as an iron meteorite. (At the Australian Museum in Sydney, probably in the 60′s).
And it looked as though it was with the smooth hacksawn and brightly finished presentation. It also had the random chrystaline patterns reminiscent of steel, or at least cast-iron. Whether this is a rare find, or I am mistaken in recalling something from the past, I’m not sure.
But I had forgotten the necessity for free Oxygen in the production of “Rust”, even so, there would be enough oxygen in the water of an errant comet should it get tangled with one.
All of this is academic though, as it appeared that the “rock” was actually a piece of space junk, but the question remains, why is it rusty? Maybe it lay around for a few days in wet conditions, or washed, because it does not take long for rust to form.
I’d be interested to know.
Ivan.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
the end of the earth comes when a meteor hits the moon destrying it sending fragments of it into the earth, then the whole thing crashes down onto the earth.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Sorry for the grave dig to this post, but the Tunguska meteorite suposidly killed quiet a few reindeer hearders in that area, they were litterally blown away with the massive amounts of forrest that was cleared. I think there was one survivor which was found up a tree that later died from internal bleeding but you know the Russians…
Again supposidly the calculations of that explosion make Hiroshima look like a poof of nothing and the explosive blast circumnavigated the world like 6 times, somewhat like TSAR Bomb also from Russia…
Hope that helps…