[meteorite-list] Meteor Bits Found in Norway

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jul 17 14:13:04 2006
Message-ID: <200607171810.LAA21710_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1390361.ece

Meteor bits found near Rygge
Rolf L Larsen
Aftenpoften (Norway)
July 17, 2006

Martinsen's last few days of summer holiday at his cabin turned out to
be much more eventful than he'd ever imagined.

He said he didn't think too much about the surprising blast at first,
dismissing it as probably coming from an exercise at a nearby military
air station at Rygge. But he said the blast and the rumbling it caused
was terrible.

It was 10:20am on Friday. Finished with his business in the outhouse, he
said he was just hooking the door when he heard a new noise, a whistling
sort of sound, followed by a new bang on some aluminum plates lying near
the outhouse.

Sure enough, it was particles from a meteor that exploded somewhere over
the Oslo Fjord area on Friday morning. But Martinsen wasn't aware of the
blast at the time. When he eventually mentioned his unusual experience
in the outhouse to some family members, his brother-in-law recalled
seeing a story about the blast in Aftenposten and put it all together.

So Martinsen called astronomer Knut J?rgen R?ed ?degaard at the
University of Oslo's institute of theoretical astrophysics and Morten
Bilet of the Norwegian Astronomical Society on Sunday. They quickly made
the trip to Martinsen's cabin.

Once there they could confirm Martinsen's remarkable discovery of
meteorite particles on his property. "This is Norway's 14th meteorite,
but we've never heard about a meteorite landing so close to a person
before," said Bilet.

Martinsen is just glad he didn't get hit on the head. Bilet and R?ed
?degaard said it was a stone meteorite, a so-called kondritt, that
Martinsen found near the dented aluminum plates. It was magnetic and
stems from the earth's own solar system.

Twelve of the 13 meteorites already found in Norway are exhibited in
Oslo's Museum of Natural History. Martinsen and his family let the two
astronomers take the meteorite stones with them to the museum.

"There can still be hundreds of pieces from this meteor lying around
here," said R?ed ?degaard. "But it will be difficult find a story like
this one."
Received on Mon 17 Jul 2006 02:10:33 PM PDT