Big Meteor Fragments Found

Technocrat

Big Meteor Fragments Found

zogger

Sun Nov 30 07:16:00 -0800 2008

Astronomy.

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Fragments of last week's large meteor that was seen all over the Pacific Northwest have been found in a border area of Saskatchewan. The object was so large and broke up so much that the rocks are estimated to be spread out over a 20 square kilometer area. And good thing it broke up, ten tons coming in at that sort of speed...el whammo! if it hit anything really important.

There, close to a frozen pond, numerous small rocks and pebbles could be seen that the scientists said were from the meteorite. No large chunks were spotted, however. ed.z.: Much good picking for rockhounds and scientists for years to come with a field that size. ed.z.2 Here are a couple more links for this. University of Alberta meteorite collection (I would imagine more pics will be posted here soon) Link to some specs about the event and how they determine size (they use recorded sound waves)

Big Meteor Fragments Found

idonthack

Sun Nov 30 11:57:25 -0800 2008
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Video of the meteor, if anyone's interested

Big Meteor Fragments Found

Spider

Sun Nov 30 22:26:02 -0800 2008
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Great video of this Meteor coming in to land. Amazing how they seem to strike sparsely populated areas. I must admit I thought there was an early warning system for Meteors heading towards our planet. I see there are plenty of sites suggesting an early warning system should be set up but I don't think any such system exists to date. If there is - they missed this one.

Big Meteor Fragments Found

Michael Smith

Mon Dec 01 00:13:49 -0800 2008
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Great video of this Meteor coming in to land.

No kidding!

Amazing how they seem to strike sparsely populated areas.

It would be pretty interesting if that were the case but I think other factors are at play here. For a start most areas are sparsely populated. You can go 100km from many large cities and be in rural areas with a very low population density.

Additionally public lighting in cities makes it difficult to see the stars, with the result that fireballs like this don't show up as well, and people tend not to look up anyway.

I must admit I thought there was an early warning system for Meteors heading towards our planet.

Yes, there is.

I see there are plenty of sites suggesting an early warning system should be set up but I don't think any such system exists to date. If there is - they missed this one.

This object is too small to be a serious hazard, and too small to detect. Recently an asteroid as small as three metres was detected and tracked before impact. That was amazingly small. This object seems to have been about the same size, but the reality is that most objects like this are going to be missed.

Years ago as I stepped out of my house something hard banged into the steel roof. It turned out to be a chunk of rock about half the size of my hand. A friend suggested a kid with a slingshot had fired it at the house, which is certainly possible. But this makes me wonder.

Big Meteor Fragments Found

Spider

Mon Dec 01 22:42:40 -0800 2008
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"something hard banged into the steel roof"

Was it hot ? ? ?

Big Meteor Fragments Found

Michael Smith

Tue Dec 02 01:04:13 -0800 2008
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That was at night. I think I found it in the gutter weeks later, though I believe falling at terminal velocity cools most meteorite fragments down pretty well anyway.

Bolide in the ocean

zogger

Mon Dec 01 07:36:04 -0800 2008
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I witnessed a flaming smoking bolide hit right off the beach before, at Marblehead, Massachusetts. Pretty neat! It hit with a big visible splash, not too far off shore. Just a little bit more inland and it would have been hiting buildings most likely.

Big Meteor Fragments Found

anthony_stars

Mon Dec 01 21:58:10 -0800 2008
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A Poem for Milley

On frozen pond,

it sits so nice.

A little star,

stuck in the ice.

It’s not a leaf,

I heard you say.

Pieces of heaven.

came this way.

Older than earth,

it traveled far.

Now in my hand,

We have a star.

by

a. tymstra