[meteorite-list] Fwd: NJO revisited

From: Darryl Pitt <darryl_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 17:14:27 -0400
Message-ID: <9C9E40CB-5849-4A1E-98A5-A53F9A0343A4_at_dof3.com>

Robert Matson thought I might wish to post the following to the
list. It's interesting.

Wishing everyone a terrific weekend.

All best / Darryl



> From: "Matson, Robert D." <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com>
> Date: May 8, 2009 3:29:58 PM EDT
> To: "Darryl Pitt" <darryl at dof3.com>, "Meteorites USA" <eric at meteoritesusa.com
> >
> Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Subject: NJO revisited
>
>
>
> Hi Darryl (please feel free to forward to the list as I cannot from
> work):
>
>> I might also mention that Eric Twelker had expressed his doubts to
>> the
> same
>> New York Times reporter with whom I had spoken, and he reached out to
> the
>> lead scientist and warned the object wasn't a meteorite, to which the
>> scientist at Rutgers tersely responded, "Get your facts straight."
>
> Dr. Delaney's defensive "get your facts straight" comment was actually
> directed at me. (Eric Twelker had forwarded my MetList post to him.)
> Here's
> the original source of that quote:
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: "Jeremy S. Delaney"
> Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:17:17 -0500
> To: Eric Twelker <twelker at alaska.net>
> Subject: Re: New Jersey Meteorite/NYT article
>
> I suggest that your colleague get his facts right Yours sincerely
> Jeremy
> S. Delaney
>
> Eric Twelker wrote:
>
>> Hello Jeremy
>>
>> I am the meteorite dealer that Kareem Fahim was talking to
>> yesterday between conversations with you. I think he explained my
>> concern on the origin of this piece--but I wanted to forward the
>> email
>> below from Rob Matson to our Meteorite Mailing list. Rob is a
>> respected scientist who is engaged in tracking and recovery of space
>> objects. He expressed concern to me that the gamma ray spectrum
>> should
>
>> be measured right away and that passage of time was critical. You
>> can
>> contact Rob here: "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com>
>>
>> Eric Twelker
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I was surprised that our local NBC affiliate in Los Angeles closed
>> the
>> news last night (just before Jay Leno) with a 30-second blurb on the
>> mystery metal object from New Jersey. So I was finally able to see
>> high-definition video of the object being rotated, allowing a better
>> feel for the surface texture. It is a bit peanut-shaped, and
>> certainly
>> larger than a golf ball which means its specific gravity is
>> correspondingly lower -- less than 7 I should think. The surface
>> looked
>
>> melted in some spots (like viscous drips), but in other areas I
>> thought
>
>> I could see glints from small, metallic crystal faces -- although not
>> unlike the octahedrite crystals one sees in the higher quality Nantan
>> pieces.
>>
>> If this had been a find rather than a fall, I'd be very encouraged by
>> its density and appearance. But as a fresh fall, it looks, well,
>> ~wrong~. Where is the crust of magnetite? How could it look the way
>> it
>> does if it just screamed through our upper atmosphere at 8+ miles per
>> second?
>>
>> So my vote is that if it turns out to be a meteorite, foul play is
>> involved. Determining whether it is a meteorite or not should take
>> about 20 seconds by any regular member of this list examining the
>> specimen firsthand. If it ~is~ a meteorite, the next step would be to
>> check its gamma ray spectrum for evidence of short-lived,
>> cosmic-ray-induced radioactive isotopes in order to prove it was
>> recently in space.
>>
>> On a final note, by nature I'm suspicious of coincidences; given the
>> recent reentry of the Soyuz third stage booster over Wyoming/
>> Colorado
>> the morning of January 4th, I thought it would be a good idea to
>> check
>> that rocket body's ground track for the evening of January 2nd over
>> New
>
>> Jersey! For example, there may have been pyro bolts or other
>> deployment
>
>> hardware related to the launch that would have had different drag
>> coefficients, causing them to reenter earlier or later than the
>> rocket
>> body. Great idea on paper; alas, there were no passes close to New
>> Jersey in the hours prior to 9pm on Tuesday night.
>>
>> --Rob



> Meteor's 4-billion-year space tour ends in N.J.
> 4 experts confirm finding in Freehold Twp.
> Saturday, January 06, 2007
> BY MARYANN SPOTO
> Star-Ledger Staff
> Upon further review, it came from outer space after all.
>
> The fist-sized hunk of rock that smashed through the roof of a
> Freehold Township home earlier this week was declared a genuine
> meteorite yesterday, making a bit of New Jersey history and solving
> a riddle that had everyone from local police to the Federal Aviation
> Administration hunting for answers.
>
> Three Rutgers University geologists and an independent scientist
> determined the dense, kidney-shaped mass had been hurtling around
> the universe for some 4.6 billion years before ending its galactic
> journey Tuesday afternoon in a second-floor bathroom.
> "This little guy is a meteorite," said Jeremy Delaney, who examined
> the object with Rutgers colleagues Gail Ashley and Claire Condie. An
> independent metallurgist, Peter Elliott, reached the same conclusion.
>
> "This would be a class of meteorites almost as old as the oldest
> things we know," Delaney said "This is true solar system material."
>
> While strikes by rock-like objects from space are not rare -- an
> estimated 20 to 50 rocky objects from outside the Earth's atmosphere
> pelt the planet daily -- most meteorites are not recovered, and New
> Jersey had been in a long space-rock drought.
>
> The last documented strike took place in Deal on Aug. 15, 1829.
>
> Delaney, who's verified only three meteorites from among all the
> objects brought to him in his 30-year career, said he's surprised
> there haven't been more.
>
> "It amazes me a state this big, with this many people, hasn't had
> more falls observed and more materials collected," he said. "Most
> objects I've seen have been meteor-wrongs. This was a meteor-right."
>
> The grayish-brown chunk, given the rather lackluster nickname
> "Freehold Township," hails from the asteroid belt, a rock-strewn
> expanse between Mars and Jupiter. It's either the core of a very
> tiny heavenly body or the fragment of a larger one that broke up
> sometime over the eons.
>
>
Received on Fri 08 May 2009 05:14:27 PM PDT