[meteorite-list] Possible Meteorite Lands In New York

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Sep 25 13:17:27 2006
Message-ID: <20060925171724.19740.qmail_at_web36902.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi all -

Sorry, but to me it sounds like a tree root fire
spreading to a buried tree stump. The explosive force
required to make a hole that large would have woken up
everyone in the neighborhood.

good hunting,
Ed



--- Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

>
> http://post-journal.com/articles.asp?articleID=7200
>
> Possible Meteorite Lands In Fluvanna
> By PATRICK L. FANELLI
> The Post-Journal (Jamestown, New York)
>
> 9/23/2006 - FLUVANNA - Fluvanna resident Brenda
> Barden doesn't know for
> sure if whatever left a smoldering hole in her
> backyard was a meteorite
> from outer space.
>
> It seems to be a pretty good guess, though.
>
> "We think that's what it was, or what was left of a
> falling star,"
> said Ms. Barden, a resident of Old Fluvanna Road.
>
> Whatever it was left a hole roughly three feet deep
> and the size of a
> manhole in her backyard a couple weeks ago and set
> fire to a tree trunk
> that was buried underground. She said she smelled it
> during the night
> and thought a neighbor was having a bonfire nearby -
> but sure enough,
> there was a hole there the next day that wasn't
> there before.
>
> "It left a big hole in our backyard," Ms. Barden
> said. "The fire
> department came and put it out. It had burned all
> night I guess."
>
> Gary Nelson, amateur astronomer and president of the
> Marshal Martz
> Memorial Astronomical Association, said it might
> indeed have been a
> meteorite - a piece of rocky debris that penetrated
> the atmosphere and
> struck the surface of the Earth.
>
> "That's not uncommon," Nelson said. "Eventually, it
> burns down to the
> size of a rock, but it hits with such an impact that
> it can leave a hole
> in ground."
>
> Meteoroids - which are any sort of small debris in
> the solar system -
> hit the Earth's atmosphere all the time at speeds of
> up to five miles or
> more a second, though it is far less common for them
> to penetrate the
> atmosphere and reach the Earth's surface. It's even
> less likely for
> anyone to notice.
>
> "What they do is they hit our atmosphere, and what
> will happen is, if
> they don't come in at a certain angle, it will skip
> like a stone going
> across water and light up across the sky," Nelson
> said.
>
> When the object leaves behind a fiery, glowing
> trail, they are referred
> to as meteors or shooting stars, but when one
> reaches the ground, they
> are referred to as meteorites. They don't have to be
> very large to
> penetrate the atmosphere without completely burning
> up, according to Nelson.
>
> "If it hits the atmosphere at just the right angle,
> it doesn't have to
> be very large," he said.
>
> Scientists estimate that 500 meteorites as small as
> a pebble and as big
> as a soccer ball hit the ground every year,
> sometimes causing damage to
> property. In fact, the famous 1908 Tunguska Event
> involved a meteorite
> or a small asteroid causing an explosion in Siberia
> that was equivalent
> to roughly 10 megatons of TNT and scorched an area
> 30 miles in diameter.
>
> According to Nelson, if it really was a meteorite
> that caused the
> smoldering hole in Ms. Barden's backyard, it was
> certainly a noteworthy
> and rare occurrence.
>
> "It was probably burning about 18 to 20 hours. By
> that time, you
> couldn't really see anything. Everything was burnt,"
> Ms. Barden said.
> "(The fire department) had no explanation. It was
> just a hole. It's in
> the middle of nowhere."
>
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Received on Mon 25 Sep 2006 01:17:24 PM PDT