[meteorite-list] Meteorite Hits 14 Year Old Boy?

From: JoshuaTreeMuseum <joshuatreemuseum_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:47:26 -0400
Message-ID: <431A02591E1248708266E5A9BA1F00A9_at_ET>

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/0667086000.jpg?t=1245180536
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/article-1192503-054F2E95000005DC-83.jpg?
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/SNN1235HH-380_823358a.jpg?t=1245180707
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/article-1192503-054F2E95000005DC-34.jpg?
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z126/tboswell/_45916040_cen_meteoriteboy_03.jpg?t=1245180773

Here are some pics from this story on our young P.T. Barnum which at last
count had over 100 article links on Google News. I haven't read them all,
they pretty much rehash the original story with some added embellishments.
Incredibly, every single story I've read makes the same misquote:
Ansgar Kortem, director of Germany's Walter Hohmann Observatory, said: "It's
a real meteorite, therefore it is very valuable to collectors and
scientists." According to the original German article, the actual quote
is: " If it's a real meteorite, it's therefore very valuable to collectors
and scientists". What a difference one word makes!

   It's almost as if not a single one of the journalists bothered to check
the primary source story. Probably not surprising since it was in German and
would require some effort to translate. More work than I'd want to do for
$8 an hour (what I was offered to write for the South Bend , (IN) Tribune.)

Anyway it's a fun story to follow, and I'm curious to see how the Susan
Boyle of the meteorite world ends up. Probably more like the Octo Mom
narrative.

So, whaddya think, a carbonaceous chondrite, with black exterior and
interior? I'm pretty sure the filled in pothole in front of the kid is
supposed to be the impact crater. (LOL!)

In all the stories, mention is given to only one person saying this is a
Newtonian impossibility: Darryl Pitt who is given the role of voice in the
wilderness by MSNBC in one of the earlier stories.

Bad Astronomy's (Discover) Phil Plait believes that an exploding fireball
increased the velocity of the pea sized stone (hasn't this theory been
debunked on the List?) and that the kid's injury was from shrapnel from the
asphalt crater. And he says this with a straight face! Phil got a little
miffed at me for saying that no real astronomer would believe any part of
this shaggy dog story.

Phil Whitmer
Received on Tue 16 Jun 2009 03:47:26 PM PDT