[meteorite-list] Articles - Berthoud

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Oct 12 11:09:40 2004
Message-ID: <416BF3B1.7070006_at_fascination.com>

Dear All;
Nice article...."can fetch up to a $1 a gram", yikes! Must be all
meteorites are over priced! Hah! err, bah!
Dave F.



ken newton wrote:

> http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3247775,00.html
>
>
> Berthoud meteorite rocks scientists
>
> By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
> October 12, 2004
>
> BOULDER - Out of a clear blue sky, a bit of space history as old as
> the solar system and no bigger than a softball slammed into the soft,
> wet earth beside a Berthoud family's home Oct. 5.
>
> John Whiteis saw light and a little bit of dirt move. His wife,
> Meghan, saw a dark streak. Their 19-year-old son, Casper, heard
> something like this:
>
> "Wsssssssshh. Thud!"
>
> "We were kind of trying to figure out what we had just witnessed,"
> said John Whiteis, a former auto mechanic and self-described Star Trek
> fan.
>
> At first he thought it might be a piece of a passing plane. But there
> were none overhead.
>
> Maybe a model rocket launched by a neighbor, they wondered. Nah.
>
> A few moments passed before the family realized what they had just
> seen: a shiny, black meteorite plunging at more than 100 mph into a
> pasture, just 75 feet from their home.
>
> Scientists say meteorites pepper the Earth's atmosphere daily, almost
> every hour. Most burn up as "shooting stars." Some land in sizes as
> small as a grain of sand.
>
> The Whiteis family, however, witnessed only the fifth confirmed
> sighting of a meteorite hitting the ground in Colorado since 1924.
>
> On Monday, the family gathered at the University of Coloradoto talk
> about their discovery along with a panel of geologists and astronomers.
>
> Judging by their reactions, it was a close call as to which group was
> more excited by the find: the family or the scientists.
>
> "Isn't this exciting?" CU geologist Steve Mojzsis gushed. "Thank you
> for bringing the meteorite in."
>
> CU planetary scientist Nick Schneider described his reaction when he
> first heard Casper Whiteis' rendition of how the meteorite sounded as
> it landed.
>
> "I got chills up and down my spine hearing that description,"
> Schneider said. "I get a zing from this rock."
>
> "This came from outer space. It probably took a million years to get
> here," he added. "If you're feeling a little bit old, just come and
> touch this and it'll put things in perspective."
>
> If not for some furniture the Whiteis family bought at an auction last
> weekend, this meteorite might have fallen to earth unseen.
>
> It rained on Monday, so the furniture stayed in the vehicle. On
> Tuesday, John Whiteis was home from work early, so in came the
> furniture. And down came the meteorite.
>
> It took the family about 25 minutes after impact to locate the meteorite.
>
> A smooth black surface about the size of a golf ball peeked out from
> under the dirt.
>
> John Whiteis turned back to the house to get a shovel. But before he
> could get there, Casper had grabbed a hammer and dug it out of the earth.
>
> By then it was cool to the touch, said Casper, an aeronautics
> engineering student at AIMS Community College, who hopes to study at
> CU some day.
>
> While meteorites have value to collectors and can fetch up to $1 a
> gram, the Whiteis family say their two-pound meteorite is not for
> sale. Instead they plan to let CU scientists study the rock and put it
> on public display.
>
> Scientists at CU also hope to study the meteorite and compile other
> eyewitness accounts of any fireball sightings that day to determine
> its trajectory.
>
> On Saturday, with permission from local property owners, scientists
> and volunteers hope to search up to four square miles of the area
> around the Whiteis home for other fragments.
>
> (photo)
>
> Megan and John Whiteis, of Berthoud, look at a meteorite during a news
> conference Monday at the University of Colorado Discovery Learning
> Center in Boulder. The meteorite landed in their back yard Oct. 5 and
> they are providing it to CU researchers for scientific analysis.
>
> ensslinj_at_RockyMountainNews.com <mailto:ensslinj@RockyMountainNews.com>
> or 303-892-5291
>
> Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
>
> __________________________________________________________
>
> http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2461705,00.html#
>
> DenverPost.com
> Article Published: Tuesday, October 12, 2004
>
> Rock of ages lands in couple's backyard
>
> By Katy Human
> Denver Post Staff Writer
>
> A time capsule fell into a Berthoud backyard last week.
>
> Megan and John Whiteis walked out their back door on the afternoon of
> Oct. 5 as a softball-sized meteorite streaked over their heads,
> plunging itself into a horse pasture about 100 feet away.
>
> "It sounded like a pretty good- sized model rocket, only like it was
> going down instead of going up," said Megan Whiteis. "Then it hit ...
> with a pretty good thud."
>
> Colorado scientists and others are now probing the stony meteorite -
> one of only five in the state's recorded history ever to be seen in
> the sky and then found on the ground - for information about the
> Earth's birth.
>
> "Meteorites are the leftovers, the table scraps from the solar system
> that tell us about our origins 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets
> formed," said Steve Mojzsis, a University of Colorado geologist.
>
> The meteorite is scientifically valuable for a variety of reasons,
> including its rare composition - only about 5 percent of all
> meteorites that fall to Earth are composed of the lava-like material
> found in this one, Mojzsis said.
>
> He speculated that it might have broken off Vesta, an asteroid about
> 325 miles across that lies in the belt between Mars and Jupiter.
>
> Also, the meteorite may still be emitting gases that were trapped
> inside because of the chill of space, said Scott Palo, an aerospace
> engineer at CU who is overseeing scientific study of the meteorite.
> Those gases could help scientists understand how our own planet -
> essentially a collection of meteorites that clumped together -
> generated its atmosphere, Palo said.
>
> Moreover, he said, he hopes scientists will be able to reproduce the
> object's trajectory through the atmosphere, to better understand where
> it came from. During the past several years, many fireballs have
> streaked through Western skies in early October, possibly because of
> their location in space relative to Earth.
>
> The meteorite may be part of a bigger one that split up in the
> atmosphere.
>
> Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or
> khuman_at_denverpost.com .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
>
Received on Tue 12 Oct 2004 11:09:37 AM PDT