Comments on: Melting meteorite makes massive mark?

By: Kurt

Kurt — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 06:49:02 +0000

Hey maybe it’s the messenger spacecraft! After all Wikipedia said that messenger was around Canada.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:20:35 +0000

Skiing over it with a magnetometer should find anything with iron it in- including golf clubs.

By: Sue Mitchell

Sue Mitchell — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:24:25 +0000

Phil said: “I’m thinking it would have to have been a fair-sized chunk of iron to make that big a hole.”

As it was on a golf course, maybe it was a 5-iron, no…?
–

By: Kurt Hollocher

Kurt Hollocher — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:36:07 +0000

The size and shape of the hole is characteristic of melting caused by spring water rising from the pond bottom. Spring water, coming from meters under the surface, typically has the average annual local temperature. It rises in a plume through the colder, denser pond water and melts the ice from below. The fresh snow, apparent in the photo, insulates the ice and aids melting. Just about any frozen shallow pond or lake will have some of these at least sometimes during the winter.

By: Barton Paul Levenson

Barton Paul Levenson — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:51:57 +0000

Francis Wayland Thurston posts: [[Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!]] Well, if Cthulhu acts now, I can set him up with a cable and high-speed internet and internet phone service for only $99.00 a month! Additional channels are extra.

By: Rational Zen

Rational Zen — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:22:55 +0000

If the hole resembles the Virgin Mother then I’ll go after it. I’ve got my own scuba gear, don’t need the freebie

By: Francis Wayland Thurston

Francis Wayland Thurston — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:13:21 +0000

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

By: jimb

jimb — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:07:21 +0000

I live in Edmonton right beside Spruce Grove, none of the local news papers, radio or TV picked it up. I would look for a Skidoo in the hole before a meteor, it’s common for night skidooer’s to vandalize golf courses. The “Markings” could simply be semi melted skidoo tracks.

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:40:51 +0000

Oscar Meyer thin-sliced Chondrite Loaf, the meteor choice for lunch.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:06:34 +0000

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080121.whole0121/BNStory/National/home

Here’s the link

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:04:20 +0000

I just read a story on Google News Canada about it. For some strange reason it’s under the sports section. A man did see a fireball 2 days before this was discovered driving from St. Albert to Edmonton. This could be the object that crashed into the pond on the Gold Course. (This course is only a few miles from where I used to live). They are reporting that it wouldn’t be worth the expense of sending divers down to look for it because the water reacts with the minerals in the rock, making it useless for scientific study.

By: Bill Nettles

Bill Nettles — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:50:42 +0000

I’ve heard that Richard Hoagland is suggesting that it’s a big booger (sp?) that the Face on Mars hocked out. He forgot to get his flu shot this year and has a bad case of it.

By: Jeffersonian

Jeffersonian — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:59:02 +0000

I have the exact same question. If the meteorite that landed in Thailand was mistakenly depicted as having been warm, then why would this one have been hot? Obviously, mass would be the difference but wouldn’t mass only become a factor for a much larger space effluvia?
As always, I for one welcome our new master.
Phil, alliteration much appreciated.

By: Kevin Conod

Kevin Conod — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:39:14 +0000

I find that very suspicious. If indeed it was a meteorite that was felt – as in people felt a seismic shckwave – wouldn’t the lake now be empty?! I mean really think about the energy involved in punching a hole in the ice and then striking the bottom of the lake with enough force for peole to feel the impact!

By: Ed Minchau

Ed Minchau — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:50:44 +0000

Phil Plait, January 18:
“…it’s like trying to dig a hole in water”

Apparently that is so easy that even a meteorite can do it.

By: 3+speckled

3+speckled — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:59:06 +0000

The article said the hole was octopus-shaped. How do we know it didn’t originate from below. Where’s PZ Myers when you need him?

By: Lugosi

Lugosi — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:55:36 +0000

A hole in the ice on a pond, in the middle of a golf course? Yeah, no other possible explanation than a meteorite.

Say, has anyone seen the groundskeeper lately…?

By: Kullat Nunu

Kullat Nunu — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:47:06 +0000

So there was a meteor, causing sonic booms. Nobody actually saw it falling down? Because people often mistake meteors falling nearby, even though the meteor can actually be hundreds of kilometers away.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:51:34 +0000

Anyway It may not have been lots of people but some anyway.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:48:27 +0000

http://www.fftimes.com/National/Meteorite-believed-cause-of-giant-hole/21-Jan-2008

here is a link to a story I found.

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:24:06 +0000

The temperature of the meteor (assuming it was one) as it minded its own business out in space wouldn’t necessarily have been cold. As it approached its rendezvous with Earth, it was of course at about the same distance from the Sun as is Earth. Earth is a big rock in space, but it’s not in a deep freeze all the time.

And the lesson here is that the temperature of space is that of the radiation flowing through it. If an object finds itself way out halfway between here & Alpha Centauri, then the dominant heat source will be the background radiation, at a temperature of only a bit less than 3K. That’s colder than a witch’s…

But here, close to the Sun, there’s a great deal more heat flowing through space. The meteor would’ve been comfortably warm even before entering the atmosphere.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:21:45 +0000

If you are talking about the one in Spruce Grove Alberta then from the radio reports I have been hearing, it sounds like alot of people not only saw but felt it hit. Apparently people saw a fireball streaming through the sky and then felt shaking when it hit for approx. 10 seconds. Then this hole in the pond at the golf course was found.

I live about a half an hour drive from there, its been all over the news.

By: Quiet_Desperation

Quiet_Desperation — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:19:35 +0000

It’s Cloverfield!

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:11:35 +0000

It might’ve been an anomalously large packet of neutrinos arriving from the other side of Earth.

By: phunk

phunk — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:03:59 +0000

murff: i was thinking the same thing, I just need a drysuit.

My guess is, if it was a meteorite, it’s a basketball sized iron meteorite, and it hit the ice at terminal velocity.