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February 11, 2012
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:
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