[meteorite-list] Meteorite Hits Caravan in England?

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Sep 6 12:11:47 2006
Message-ID: <200609061611.JAA04243_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://ichuddersfield.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_objectid=17694799&method=full&siteid=50060&headline=close-encounter--name_page.html

Close encounter!
The Huddersfield Daily Examiner (United Kingdom)
September 6, 2006

A NEWSOME couple cheated death in a close encounter with a meteorite!

Chris Nolan and his wife Julie were relaxing on holiday in Lincolnshire
when the rock plummeted to earth, crashing through their caravan window.

Mr Nolan, a psychiatric nurse at St Luke's Hospital, said when they
found the meteorite it was still hot and reeked of sulphur.

The couple were enjoying the afternoon weather while children Luke, 9,
and Charlotte, 6, were off riding their bikes.

Mr Nolan told the Examiner: "We were on holiday caravanning in
Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire.

"It was about 2.30pm on one of the nice days and we were lying out in
the sun. The kids were off cycling in another part of the park.

"There was this enormous bang and me and my wife jumped up.

"Our first thought was perhaps a kid had thrown a stone against the window."

He said there was a man cutting the grass nearby and thought a stone
could have been thrown up by the blades. But they realised he was too
far away.

"Initially we didn't know what it was. We thought perhaps our bikes had
fallen over.

"Then the kids came back and said there was a big hole in the window of
the caravan."

The rock had smashed a hole straight through a double perspex window.

"We then noticed there was a rock, about three inches in diameter. We
dug it out and it was really hot.

"We didn't find it straight away and it was still hot.

"It's an unusual composition and it stinks of sulphur, like rotten eggs."

The rock has distinctive yellow colours and has holes in it.

He said on the following day a friend came round who knows a bit about
geology and confirmed it wasn't from the local area.

He added: "The kids were dead excited. The lad thought we were going to
be famous and could sell it to become millionaires.

"Half an hour afterwards we were looking up to the sky thinking that if
it had been eight foot to the left we would have been dead!"

And because of the incredible odds of the rock hitting their caravan he
decided to try his luck on the National Lottery.

"I bought a lottery ticket thinking, 'this was it', because I bet the
odds were about the same. I got the first number but didn't win!"

* Meteorites are asteroids, or other pieces of extra terrestrial matter,
that enter the Earth's atmosphere.

* About 40,000 tonnes of extra-terrestrial matter hits the Earth's
surface yearly.

* Around 1,000 meteorites the size of footballs hit the Earth's surface
each year.

* One of the biggest craters on Earth is at Chicxulub, in the Gulf of
Mexico. It is around 180 kilometres across, but nothing can be seen on
the ground as it is now partly under ground and under the sea.

* Despite reports of meteorites hitting cars and homes, there have been
no cases of anyone being killed directly. However, it was reported that
a man died of heart failure after a meteorite struck close to his home
in India.
Received on Wed 06 Sep 2006 12:11:37 PM PDT