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The following is a loose translation of the essential parts of this
newspaper article. A few small liberties were taken in the translation
to make it more colloquial in English.
My wife was born in Canton, China - she did the translation and I did
the editing. We didn't translate everything, some parts didn't seem that
interesting. We did find some parts amusing, like hinting that the
meteorites were radioactive so that people would give up their finds.
Since this has general interest, I'm copying to the 'meteorite-list'
mailing list.
[article begins]
Meteor Shower over Juancheng
----------------------------
In the late evening of 2/15/97, people were awakened by a loud noise and
a bright light across the dark sky. They thought it was an
earthquake. [Translator: there had been earthquakes before in this
area.]
The Heze district seismic chief and his assistants quickly checked all
readings but found no signs of an earthquake. Gathering reports from the
surrounding 15 000 square km they concluded that it was not an
earthquake but some other natural phenomenon. They formed a three-man
crew to investigate.
They had a rough idea of the area from sightings: North of Heze, SW of
Yuancheng, W or S of Juancheng.
They ran into an old farmer at Juancheng who told them about the rocks
that fell from the sky the last night and showed them the location.
The villagers there witnessed a bunch of bright lights strike down from
the sky for about 1 minute. They heard a roaring sound for 2 to 3
minutes, then burning [sic] rocks fell like hail.
The rocks were smooth with thin black crust and thumb prints. Inside,
the rocks were light or dark gray in color. They found the largest
stone, 2.7 kg, and small ones the size of peanuts. They proved it was a
classic meteor shower at Juancheng province.
The meteor shower news broke out immediately. All broadcasting stations
reported about it. It was the fifth recorded meteor shower since the
founding of the PRC (1911). The other 4 were: Shuangyang province, Jilin;
Jilin City, Jilin; Changde, Hunan; Suizhou, Hubei. (The one in Jilin
city on 3/8/76 was the most significant).
Wang Si-Chau, International Meteorite Association (?) naming member,
came from Nanjing to Juancheng on 2/19/97 after he learned the news. He
believed it travelled from E to W, was originally about .5 km in
diameter, and entered the atmosphere at 200 km/sec. It exploded twice in
the atmosphere, first over the town of Si-Shuang-Mau. In that area all
the meteorites were small, peanut-sized, and plentiful. The meteor
continued and exploded the second time over Deng-Kau. In that area the
meteorites found were much larger - 200 to 300 g. The entire strewn
field is approximately 5 km long (E to W) and 3 km wide (N to S).
Meteor showers are natural phenomena. China has been able to trace about
360 meteor hits on its territory in the last 3,000 years.
Meteoroids travel in the solar system, fall into the atmosphere with
very high speed, and at a temperature of 1,000 to 2,000 K. The outside
melts creating the bright light from atmospheric friction. They create a
vacuum behind them which makes a roaring sound.
The uneven surface of the meteorite struck by the air flow and high
temperature cause it to explode, usually about 20 km above the
ground.
Wang said that meteor study helps to understand the structure of the
earth, the origins of life, and how to avoid future collisions, etc.
Wang asked the public not to collect or keep the meteorites because they
belong to the Chinese government. He reminded everyone that all
meteorites contain certain amounts of radiation, though weak, and that
one should not keep them close to the body [sic!].
There were no injuries from the fall, although one person's tiled roof
was cracked. People should not worry about the meteor falls, but they
should not go unrecognized. Since 1994, meteor falls have increased. The
US built many observatories to watch and calculate their entry in our
atmosphere.
[end of article]
--
Jim Hurley mailto:hurleyj@arachnaut.org
Arachnaut's Lair http://www.arachnaut.org/ >