[meteorite-list] Meteorite Hits Tractor in Canada?

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Jul 27 11:32:57 2005
Message-ID: <200507271531.j6RFVwT17766_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2005/07/27/1149239-sun.html

Meteorite hits tractor
By CP
Edmonton Sun
July 27, 2005

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. -- An unusual rock that fell out of the sky, through
a shed and into a tractor earlier this month appears to be a meteorite,
says a director with the Geological Survey of Canada.

After viewing photographs taken of the stone, Alan Galley said the rock
has the characteristics of a "stony meteorite" created by the gradual
collection of space dust.

"It's actually the process in which the planets formed where you get
dust from space that agglomerate together. If it happens enough you have
a planet, but in other cases you have a meteorite," said Galley,
speaking from the federal government agency's office in Ottawa.

An afternoon picking strawberries took a bizarre twist for Adeline Kelly
on July 17 when a chunk of rock plummeted from the sky, penetrating the
tin roof of a shed and piercing the manifold of a tractor on her and her
husband's Montney ranch, just north of Fort St. John. The stone bounced
several times after landing. Adeline searched for the object and
eventually found a small, rough-surfaced black and grey stone with
specks of diamond-like material embedded in it. Part of the stone had
shattered, but much of it was still intact.

The black crust on the stone, called fusion, is created when the item
travels through the Earth's atmosphere. Galley said that while finding a
meteorite is rare in itself, watching one strike a building is even less
common.

"It's unusual for a meteorite to hit anything. The chances are pretty
small." But meteorites have struck objects, and almost a person, in the
past, added Galley.

A golfer was almost hit by one in Canada, and another man had the trunk
of his car damaged when a chunk of space rock plowed into his vehicle.
Galley said more pieces of the rock could still be found on the ranch
within a few hundred metres of the landing site.
Received on Wed 27 Jul 2005 11:31:58 AM PDT