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July 30, 2010
Meteor hits boy on way to school
Published: 11 Jun 09 11:46 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090611-19857.html
A pebble-sized meteorite crashed and burned into Earth, grazing 14-year-old Gerritt Blank while on his way to catch the school bus.
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The result was a 10-centimetre burn on the back of his left hand, but Blank knew something special had happened to him.
“I thought the meteor struck me, but it could also be a result from the heat as it went by me,” he said.
After the intial shock, Blank looked at the glowing rock the left a sizable crater in Brakeler Wald Street. He then took the iced tea from his school lunch and doused his glowing pebble and took it to school with him.
“At school, I told the story. My classmates believed me,” he said. His parents didn’t get to hear the story until the end of the school day.
Once home, Blank, who plans to focus his studies in science, tested the round, black object and already found some confirmation the pebble is from outer space: like many meteorites, the rock is magnetic.
Approximately 3,000 meteorites hit the Earth’s surface daily.
The Local (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
"Meteors stop ablating (burning) approximately seven miles above our planet's surface, then fall in what is known as "dark flight," according to the normal pull of gravity. It is very cold at an altitude of seven miles, so meteorites cool quickly as they plummet towards the Earth. There has never been a documented case of a burning, or even hot, meteorite landing upon the Earth."
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF1/190.html
"A meteor weighing from several pounds to several hundred pounds will, indeed, partially burn up before striking the ground. Entry to the atmosphere may be at speeds as great as 90,000 miles per hour (40 km/see). Roughly half of the meteor will be burned away due to heating as the meteor is slowed down by the air. Depending upon the meteor's initial speed and initial weight, it will reach a terminal speed of about 45 miles per hour. It will reach that low speed roughly 10 miles above the ground."
But we need proof to back up your statement!
"A meteor weighing from several pounds to several hundred pounds will, indeed, partially burn up before striking the ground. Entry to the atmosphere may be at speeds as great as 90,000 miles per hour (40 km/see). Roughly half of the meteor will be burned away due to heating as the meteor is slowed down by the air. Depending upon the meteor's initial speed and initial weight, it will reach a terminal speed of about 45 miles per hour. It will reach that low speed roughly 10 miles above the ground... As the meteor falls the last 10 or so miles it cools off. Meteorites picked up immediately after they fell were usually no more than lukewarm. Never has a meteorite of intermediate size been known to start a fire, even when landing in a haystack or in other combustible material."
take care,
space
K
http://www.caver.net/meteor1.html
astro.wsu.edu/worthey/astro/html/im-meteor/strikes.html
Meteor strikes which draw human attention and leave appreciable residue occur about ten times a year.
As for so-called "TERMINAL VELOCITY", why would a meteor's terminal velocity be less than that of an object dropped from a hundred story building? Don't meteors obey the laws of motion? Didn't Galileo resolve this a few centuries ago?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity