[meteorite-list] Terminal velocity of small falling objects

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:08:25 2004
Message-ID: <3D83C34C.8050905_at_fascination.com>

Dear James, Piper, and List;
I still think that the way that a pea sized stone hits my car windshield
at 90 miles an hour and puts a very large star in that rather much
harder than my skin windshield, would tend to probably imbed it self in
my skin. Now if you want to talk about small very round objects and
velocities of 600-800 feet per second, why not just shoot your foot with
a bb gun. I have seen others do it and I choose to not do that. A bb
will go into the skin and muscle an inch with good penetration and less
with less.
Do the math, yah, just shoot your foot, but don't put your eye out!

Dave Freeman

James_TOM Knudson wrote:

>
>
>
>
> Hello, I don't know if this post is in regards to the post I posted
> about the girl getting hit by the meteorite, but it sure sounds like
> it. I do not think a small meteorite would necessarily hurt a person!
> The hole weight X velocity thing! She stated that she noticed the
> falling meteorite at about roof level. I know the velocity of a small
> falling rock from "miles up" has to be to fast for some one to
> "notice" it falling from roof level! It sounds to me that she noticed
> it at the top of its apogee, about roof level after it was thrown at
> her! You through a small rock at least 120mph and try to see it! I
> don't agree with your terminal velocity thing ether : ) A 16 lb
> bowling ball might reach terminal velocity and stay at that speed,
> But, a 2 lb female Peregrine Falcon will reach terminal velocity with
> out flapping and then keep accelerating as long as it's aerodynamics'
> allow some where over 200mph.
> Thanks, Tom
>
> From: "Piper R.W. Hollier" To: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Terminal velocity of small falling objects
> Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 21:59:45 +0200 Hello Tom, Tom, Shaun, Dave,
> Ron, and list, > As I said before, simple ballistics made it
> impossible, the girls foot would > have been damaged and in need of a
> hospital. Ron, I DON'T agree with this statement made by an unnamed
> contributor, nor with several other similar statements. My
> disagreement is based not on "simple" ballistics, but on
> "mathematical" ballistics, that is, taking known formulas and plugging
> in reasonable input values and seeing what comes out. I will make an
> amateur attempt here to contribute something about the physics of
> small meteorite falls. Like many other phenomena where most humans
> have little or no first-hand experience, some people may develop
> intuitive notions about the subject which are rather inconsistent with
> the laws of physics. The sensationalist bent of the media doesn't help
> much. I am a firm believer in "doing the math". Calculations based on
> known formulae are arguably not as good as making experimental
> measurements, but are still considerably better than seat-of-the-pants
> guesswork. Somebody please correct me if my logic or my math are off
> track in the following analysis. An object dropped and allowed to fall
> through the lower atmosphere does not continue to accelerate
> indefinitely. There will instead be an upper boundary on the velocity
> at which it falls, called the "terminal velocity". At the terminal
> velocity, the downward force cause by gravitational attraction between
> the object and the earth (the "weight" of the object) is exactly
> balanced by the upward force of the aerodynamic drag of the object's
> passage through the atmosphere. When these two forces are in balance
> there will be no further acceleration and the object will maintain an
> essentially constant downward velocity. For a sky diver the terminal
> velocity is about 53 meters per second, or 120 mph. There is only
> significant acceleration during the first 10 seconds or so of fall.
> After that, the onrushing air pushes the person up just as hard as the
> earth pulls him or her down, and the fall velocity levels off. Animals
> smaller than sky divers have a lower terminal velocity -- in the case
> of small insects it can be much less than 1 mph. This is part of the
> reason why bugs, lizards, tree frogs, and even small mammals can fall
> out of tall trees, hit the ground, and usually simply walk away
> unharmed, while a human would be seriously injured by a fall from the
> same height. Terminal velocity is also the reason that a small
> meteorite can fall "for miles", hit a person, animal, car, or building
> and do little or no damage. Small meteorites will in most cases have
> lost all of their cosmic velocity at a considerable distance above the
> ground, and the fall velocity upon reaching the ground is the
> aerodynamic terminal velocity. How small does a meteorite need to be
> to not be dangerous? The magnitude of the terminal velocity depends on
> a number of things: 1. The density and viscosity of air. The exact
> values of these at sea level depend on barometric pressure,
> temperature, and humidity, but for the purposes of rough calculations
> can be assumed to be about 1.222 kg per cubic meter density and 1.73 x
> 10^-5 newton-seconds per square meter viscosity on a typical pleasant
> afternoon in Northallerton. 2. The density of the falling object. This
> is typically 3.25 to 3.90 grams per cubic centimeter for ordinary
> chondrites and about 8 grams per cubic centimeter for irons. 3. The
> size of the falling object. Use a ruler or make an estimate from a
> photo. The meteorite in the Northallerton photo looks like it is about
> one inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. 4. The shape of the falling object. 5.
> The rigidity of the falling object. If one makes the simplifying
> assumptions that the object is spherical and rigid, the calculation of
> terminal velocity is rather straightforward. These are not
> unreasonable approximations when making rough calculations for falling
> meteorites. There is a convenient web page where one can simply plug
> in the relevant values and have a computer do the calculation:
> http://www.processassociates.com/process/separate/termvel.htm If we
> assume a small meteorite with a typical chondritic density of 3.65
> grams per cubic centimeter and a diameter of 2.5 cm (roughly one
> inch), we come up with a terminal velocity of about 46.8 meters per
> second, or roughly 105 mph. This meteorite would weigh about 29.8
> grams, or roughly one ounce. The question of how much damage a hard
> one-ounce object traveling at 105 mph might do upon striking a human
> being is left to the reader's own judgment and intuition. Personally I
> think it would hurt a lot but would not necessarily require a trip to
> the emergency room, much less the morgue. This is far from a "speeding
> bullet" velocity. It is not a lot faster than a fast ball pitch and
> the object is a lot lighter than a baseball -- batters routinely
> survive getting hit with a fast ball. An iron meteorite of the same
> diameter with a density of 7.9 grams per cubic centimeter would weigh
> about 65 grams, or about 2.3 ounces. The terminal velocity would be
> about 69 meters per second, or roughly 155 mph. I would not want to be
> in the way, but getting hit by even this falling object would probably
> cause a lot less damage than a gunshot at close range. Short of a hit
> on the top of the head, this is probably a survivable encounter in
> most cases. Somewhat counter-intuitively, it doesn't really matter
> whether these meteorites had been falling through the air "from miles
> up" or only a few hundred meters. Once the velocity approaches
> terminal velocity, which happens in just a few seconds for small
> objects, there is no significant further acceleration. The 3 gram
> chondrite fragment which hit the boy at Mbale would have been falling
> at approximately 33 meters per second, or about 73 mph. Once again, I
> think it would have been painful if it had hit him directly, but
> accounts stating that his life was saved because the meteorite was
> slowed down by hitting a tree before striking him seem
> sensationalistic to me. Falling stones that weigh only three grams are
> just not a big danger, regardless of what height they fall from. The
> Sylacauga, Alabama stone which fell through a house in 1954, hitting a
> woman and severely bruising her, weighed a very substantial 3.9 kg
> (8.6 pounds). This is another situation entirely compared to small
> stones weighing an ounce or less. Calculation of the fall velocity is
> left as an exercise for the reader. If several layers of house
> construction hadn't slowed the rock down, she would almost certainly
> have qualified for a very unique epitaph on her gravestone. Best
> wishes to all, Piper PS -- BTW, I don't doubt in the least that it is
> dangerous, irresponsible, and idiotic to amuse oneself by shooting a
> gun into the air in populated areas.
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Received on Sat 14 Sep 2002 07:16:28 PM PDT