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Kitchener Re-post
dean bessey schrieb:
> Can somebody give me some info on exactly where that new Canadian
> meteorite is located (Such as directions to the strewnfield which
> seems to be a two hour drive from where I live). Any other info
> would be highly appriciated - Thanks DEAN BESSEY
Hi Dean and List,
Sky & Telescope, February 1999, p. 24: A narrow Meteorite Miss
Scientists are preparing to analyze a meteorite that fell at the feet of
a Canadian golfer last summer. According to the Kitchener-Waterloo
Record, Orville Delong was nearly hit by the spacefaring stone on July
12th last year while golfing in Kitchener, Ontario. The meteorite is
chondritic, implying an origin in the asteroid belt, says University of
Toronto geochemist John C. Rucklidge; isotopic analyses performed
shortly after its recovery suggest that it traveled in interplanetary
space for a minimum of several hundred thousand years. "I’m deluged by
calls from people who have meteorites that turn out to be anything but,"
Rucklidge continues, but Delong's specimen, with its black, shiny
surface and fine hairline cracks, is "unlike anything else you would
ever find." Canadian researchers will slice into the space rock once a
replica is made.
Sky & Telescope, June 1999, p. 14:
Fore! I was fascinated by your news note in the February issue about a
meteorite that narrowly missed a Canadian golfer. Where better to look
for fresh meteorites than on a golf course? Is there any large area of
the Earth's surface that is better looked after or more regularly
searched for small falling objects?
In 1991 I wrote a paper on the meteorite flux to Earth (Space Science
Reviews, Vol. 61, page 275; 1992) indicating that about 60,000
meteorites larger than the "golf-course meteorite" hit Earth each year.
The fairways on a typical golf course have a total area about 1.8 x
10^-10 that of Earth. So each 18-hole golf course has about a 1 in
100,000 chance of being hit by a meteorite every year. Multiply this by
the number of golf courses on Earth, and you realize it's worth
encouraging golfers to keep their eyes open!
David W. Hughes, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of
Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, England (d.hughes@Sheffield.ac.uk).
Best regards,
Bernd
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