[meteorite-list] Cali meteorite fall trajectory and offset ofdamage.

From: Michael Farmer <meteoriteguy_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:46:23 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <691674.75540.qm_at_web33108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I don't think so, as it should have then been seen to
explode over Cali, and from what I gather, the largest
explosions were at least 30 km north of the city, but
I dont know. Isn't is odd though, that three of the
four home smashers weighed less than 100 grams, and
two of the four weighed less than 50 grams? They still
had enough velocity to damage tile floors and even
dent a metal refigerator. I doubt many people could
throw a 38 gram stone and dent the steel of that
fridge. That is after ripping through the metal
rooftop. From all accounts, the body entering the
atmosphere must have been very large indeed to cause
explosions loud enough to shatter windows.
Michael Farmer
I only report what we found, the science I leave up to
those smarter than me.

--- Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

> As I've noted often in the past, it requires very
> unusual conditions for
> a meteorite to retain any of its horizontal velocity
> component when it
> reaches the ground. The conditions of the Cali fall
> wouldn't seem to
> support this. These lightweight stones may have had
> a slight north to
> south angle because of the low level winds, or they
> may simply have been
> deflected on impact. You don't have enough samples
> to say with any
> certainty. But it is certainly the case that <100 g
> stones one minute
> past a terminal explosion are falling with a
> horizontal airspeed of
> essentially zero.
>
> If these fell within 30 seconds of a terminal
> explosion, occurring at
> less than 10,000 feet height, some forward velocity
> would likely remain.
> Any chance of that?
>
> Chris
>
> *****************************************
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatory
> http://www.cloudbait.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Farmer" <meteoriteguy at yahoo.com>
> To: "Armando Afonso" <armandoafonso at oniduo.pt>;
> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 9:38 AM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Cali meteorite fall
> trajectory and offset
> ofdamage.
>
>
> > Armando, we did measure the hole/impact offsets,
> of 3
> > of the 4 house smashers (Cali #004 did not enter
> the
> > home, so there was only the initial impact point).
> > The other two were offset from ~9 cm for Cali #003
> > which hit the top of the refrigerator so did no
> travel
> > very far after penetrating the roof.
> > Cali #001 was offset more than 30 cm and it was
> > exactly in the North/South trajectory, just like
> the
> > dirction of travel, so it was not falling strait
> down
> > at terminal velocity.
> >
> > Cali #002 was offset by about 15 cm, same,
> north/south
> > trajectory.
> >
> > These are more things that I need to tweek on the
> > pages. It shows to me that the meteorite were
> moving
> > very rapidly for such small stones to do as much
> > damage as they did, and they were not just falling
> > strait down.
> >
> > Michael Farmer
>
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Received on Sun 29 Jul 2007 01:46:23 PM PDT