[meteorite-list] Re: Possible meteorite fall in Northeast Brazil (forwarded message from Wilton Caravalho)

From: Mark Van Tomme <markvantomme_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Mar 10 07:12:30 2006
Message-ID: <20060310121227.45197.qmail_at_web34606.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Mark,

Would you please post this message for me.

It seems I am facing a problem with messages I send
which are not being
posted.

Thanks

Wilton
Message to be posted:


Subject: Do meteorites start fires?

By 7:00 PM, last Monday, a fireball was seen
"exploding" over a rural
area
in Brazil. Next day the Press just aired and wrote
that a meteorite
felt and
set at least five fires in a large area close by a
highway.

Until now no fragments of meteorite or space junk has
been found.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I have been at the site and
found only ash,
burned
trees and bushes. Local people are searching the area.
One of them
found a
"stone with a black coating" which was promptly
photographed and
published
by newspapers as a meteorite. I examined a fragment of
that stone and
found
that it is just sandstone. No doubt about that: two
geologists also
have the
same opinion after examined the sample I got from the
finder. There is
no
crater at all. Just a hole 29 cm long and 40 cm deep
where nothing was
found.

I believe that meteorites do not start a fire as
Nininger wrote in the
book
Ask a question about meteorites (1961, 1969 pages 8
and 9)

"Meteorites do not start fires even when they fall
into some easily
combustible material such as dry grass or straw.
Meteorites do not
reach the
ground in blazing condition.* (The one exception to
this rule is the
extremely rare crater-forming meteorite which is so
huge that it
resists the
braking effect of atmospheric friction and explodes
upon reaching the
earth."

I will visit the site again next Sunday looking for
evidences that the
fires
people saw just after the fireball almost silent
"explosion" were not
started by a meteorite fall.

Is there any occurence of meteorites which started
fires?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Van Tomme" <markvantomme_at_yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:48 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Possible meteorite fall in
Northeast Brazil




Hi all,below is the link to a brazilian site reporting
on a possible meteorite fall yesterday in the town of
Santo Ant?nio de Jesus,State of Bahia,Northeast
Brazil.
It's in Portuguese sorry but it basically says that a
"fireball" has created a crater and caused panic among
the population and that the local astronomical club
was looking for samples.

http://noticias.terra.com.br/brasil/interna/0,,OI908174-EI306,00.html

Regards

Mark Van Tomme


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Received on Fri 10 Mar 2006 07:12:27 AM PST