[meteorite-list] Suspected Meteorite Was Concrete That Fell From Passing Plane

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:09:14 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201007302209.o6UM9EQS023382_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7919157/Suspected-meteorite-was-concrete-lump-that-fell-from-passing-plane.html
  
Suspected meteorite was concrete lump that fell from passing plane
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
July 30, 2010

A suspected meteorite that landed on a cricket pitch was in fact a
lump of concrete probably dislodged from the bottom of a passing
aircraft, experts have concluded.

The lump of rock was initially thought to have been the first
extra-terrestrial object to land on Britain for almost two decades.

Jan Marszal and Richard Haynes were watching Sussex play Middlesex at
Uxbridge when the rock landed inside the boundary rope, split in two and
popped up and hit Mr Marszal, a 51-year-old IT consultant, in the chest.

At the time he said: "It was travelling really fast.

"It was definitely not a stone thrown by a member of the crowd. It must
have been part of a meteorite.

"We can't think of anything else it could have been. It is a rocky type
of substance."

Such was the interest generated by their account that the pair even
received a call from 87-year-old astronomy expert Sir Patrick Moore.

But on Thursday, Dave Harris of the British and Irish Meteroite Society
revealed the rock did not appear to have fallen from space.

He said: "I'm afraid it's nothing more than a piece of Portland cement
with flecks of brick dust and flint in it.

"It is most probably something that fell off the undercarriage of a
plane. It was not like a meteorite at all."

The piece of cement was also sent to renowned planetary scientist
Professor Colin Pillinger, the leader of the Beagle Mars lander project
in 2003, who came to the same conclusion.

Mr Marszal said: "I had never seen a meteorite before so didn't know
what one looked like but it came down from the sky and I couldn't think
what else it could have been.

"I am disappointed but in some ways I glad it's all over and we now know
what it is."
Received on Fri 30 Jul 2010 06:09:14 PM PDT