[meteorite-list] hot meteorites

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:41:09 2004
Message-ID: <3A888ABF.2BA60A56_at_fascination.com>

Dear Hotties;
My favorite first hand account of a not meteorite was the one that Mr.Bill Anisle
of Riverton, Wyoming related to me two years ago. He said his childhood meteor
hit the closeline post and bent the iron pipe. He then stated that it went into
the ground next to the pole and was so hot that they had to wait two days for it
to cool off before they could dig it up.
The pole (still the iron oil well pipe) is still there, and not bent, and the
meteorite is no where to be found in recent memory. He was a youngster when it
hit.
Quite the interesting story, from a devoted rock hound....
You tell me.
As the blindman picked up his hammer and saw...
Dave F.

Sharkkb8_at_aol.com wrote:

> << There are too many reports of meteorites being hot to the touch and
> singing objects to say they are cold when they fall...........There was even
> a stone from the Portales Valley fall with a piece of plastic melted to it
> after landing on a plastic object. >>
>
> I would think that the exterior of the stone would be hot at the moment of
> impact, but that the interior 99.9% of the rock, which is still essentially
> deep-space-frozen at that point, would cool that thin exterior down extremely
> quickly (contraction cracks?). It would seem plausible enough that the
> Portales rock could melt some plastic upon immediate contact with it, but I'd
> bet that the chance of someone picking up a fresh fall virtually on impact,
> like the Portales/plastic contact would have to have been, is highly
> unlikely. It seems to me that the uniformity of reports of falls being cold
> to the touch, betray the fact that they have been on terra firma for several
> seconds or a minute, surely enough time for the frozen mass to cool its crust
> veneer. Unless a rock were picked up virtually immediately upon impact, I
> betcha most of those reports of them being red-hot are just wishful thinking
> and/or sensationalism, like that story of the one that was "glowing
> underwater". ;-)
>
> Gregory
>
>
>
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Received on Mon 12 Feb 2001 08:15:43 PM PST