Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw “ball of light” heading straight towards him from the sky. A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.
The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million – but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.
He said: “At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. “Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road,” he explained.
Scientists are now studying the pea-sized meteorite which crashed to Earth in Essen, Germany.
This article mentions other close encounters of the outerspace rocky kind. The kind that brought life here to Earth?
I came to earth on a meteorite myself.
I’m not writing in Hebrew.
?Why is the cursor fixed on the right margin
#2: Marc updated WordPress and all the plugins night before last and something went wonky. Oddly, it works fine in IE. Still working on it…
Maybe the rightwingers will go now go extinct
Let me get this straight…a PEA-SIZED piece of rock causes all this damage? I’m no physics expert, but something doesn’t sound right.
This is a post about a meteorite hitting a person’s hand, correct?
Just checking to see if they’re crazy or I’m crazy.
#2 – RTaylor – I’m not writing in Hebrew.
?Why is the cursor fixed on the right margin
Because John’s code monkey doesn’t know how to maintain a website.
Shut off JavaScript and the editor will be back to normal. The easiest way is to install NoScript if you’re using Firefox… it will allow you to choose which JavaScripts that are executed (in this case “dvorak.org”, but you might want to shut off “google-analytics.com” and “googlesyndication.com” as well. If a video isn’t showing on the site, just turn on JavaScript to watch it, then shut it off again. It’s easy.
#6 – Alfred1
No, it’s Obama’s fault.
Right. Bounces off his skin and then causes a 1′ crater. Boy of steel?
#8
here you go, this is grade school physics
in this situation it’s not the mass of the object that is destructive but it’s momentum
The part I’m having trouble with is that it put a hole in the ground AFTER it it his hand
I have a feeling his hand was struck from the debris ejected from the crater after the meteor struck the ground
Otherwise it’s hard to understand how his hand wasn’t vaporized
# 13 tj said, “in this situation it’s not the mass of the object that is “destructive but it’s momentum
Actually, mass is part of the equation. F=MA
So when it hits the ground it causes a crater, but when it hits the boy’s hand instead of going through it deflects.
I guess it is possible depending on the angle but it still seems rather difficult to believe.
#14 Patrick
I know you aren’t saying that a pebble traveling at 2kph has the same destructive force as that same pebble traveling at 30,000
try not to be so pedantic it just lowers the level of conversation for everyone
#15. I think it went straight through the kids hand, but was it was not a direct blow. It could have gone straight through his skull and not even noticed. After all, we are just bags of meat with a bit of calcium holding it up.
Re: #10 Jägermeister, Thanks!
Your suggestion re Javascript worked on Safari. 😉
re #6, Alfred1: “STRANGE Rush Limbaugh, the right or religion, or all three, aren’t responsible for this, you are slipping Uncle Dave.”
Aren’t those the excuses you usually bring to the table Alfred1?
Surely that boy took the Lord’s name in vain just moments before, and God slapped his hand for it.
Think of it as a pea sized object being fired from a rifle (bullet) the boom was probably the sonic boom it made traveling slower than the object.
Think of lightning bolt, thunder.
Most likely grazed his hand without any deflection.
Maybe this guy just burned his hand on an iron. The evidence of a meteor in the story, either other witnesses mentioned or physical evidence, it pretty non-existent.
Certainly more fun to tell your friends you were hit with a meteor than you had an accident frying an egg, and then it spirals from there to the gullible international press. How embarrassing for all of humanity.
#19 – JimR
No problem.
#23, Alfred1, re: “#20 No, and I challenge you to produce even one example where I did that.”
I am unable to search back through Dvorak archives, or I would show you where you bring out your prejudices and religious beliefs at every opportunity, regardless of the topic.
Your first post today could be an example in fact. Trying to stir up some religious retort, weren’t you? Oops, you succeeded again.
#25 – JimR – I am unable to search back through Dvorak archives…
Use Google… type in what you want to search on and add site:dvorak.org after it. Example.
Ah, thanks again Jägermeister…
One example? ok… blaming the left for Muslim extremism…
TOPIC: Video – Demographic Doom?
Re post #33:
“No…expand the Bush Doctrine…spread Democracy…
The problem is the left only gives lip service to democracy…they really want only the freedom to enforce their political correctness on others…and a green life style…
Proving how much they don’t appreciate freedom, is their common assertion Islamic nations can’t be free…genetically incapable of freedom and other such disparaging theories…
If you know freedom in your heart and mind, as conservatives do, then you know its power to overcome totalitarianism, religious or secular….
But Now you understand why Islamic nations persecute Christianity fiercely…we are the only effective weapon against Islam…
the alternative lifestyles and blasphemies of the left only inflame Islamic fire.”
Fire up the BS Meter..
a pea sized projectile “bounces” off someones hand (without obliterating the kids hand??) –yet retains enough energy to create a 1 foot crater???????????????
please…
sounds like someone wanted to talk about the object but needed a way to validate it’s discovery. -or the whole story is a BS distraction (news filler)
“”I am really keen on science and my teachers discovered that the fragment is really magnetic,” said Gerrit.”
-of course it’s magnetic. the whole universe operates on electromagnetism.
*shrug*
-s
# 16 tj said, “I know you aren’t saying that a pebble traveling at 2kph has the same destructive force as that same pebble traveling at “30,000
I said, F=MA
Thank God the text box has been fixed! Now we all can move on to the next BIG issue.
#30 i don’t know if you got that formula off of wikipedia or something, but I think what you’re looking for is
k = mv*2
read: kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared.
The formula you used refers to the force needed to ACCELERATE a mass through a vacuum. kinetic energy and force are not the same thing.
Speaking of vacuums, the “pea-sized” meteorite would be subject to some kind of terminal velocity due to friction with the air. I haven’t run the numbers but for a pebble to cause a foot-wide hole in concrete it would need to have such ridiculous kinetic energy that the speed it travels at would be WAY outside of any reasonable terminal velocity in our atmosphere. Unless anyone would care to argue that the density of that meteorite is astronomically higher than that of the densest stuff we’ve come across. What I’m saying is that a pebble that small COULD NOT cause a foot wide crater in concrete, regardless of the speed it could attain travelling through air. And that’s notwithstanding the ridiculous notion that it “bounced” off a kid’s hand, not having enough kinetic energy to resist deflection, but having enough to create such a crater. My bullshit meter is reading “Al Gore”, the end of the scale you don’t see very often even in today’s world.
Is there anything at all true about this story? Anything?
# 32 Fartacus said,
Is there anything at all true about this story? Anything?
Having read it on a ‘science’ blog with responses, only that it was published… all other data seem to be ‘iffy’ at best.
J/P=?
Fart = Methane * ‘aperture’
F=MA
Alfred1, my post #28 was in answer to your post #26… just in case you didn’t connect the two.
As I pointed out, you have your pet peeves that you blame everything on as well (Obama, homosexuals, etc.) So don’t think you are so special that you are above being wrong, or criticized. As it turns out, your rant in post #26 is completely FOS.
Craola.
A high caliber rifle shot point blank at the ground wouldn’t make a foot wide crater.
Million to one odds? In all of recorded history
he is only the 2nd one hit out of billions of
people who have lived.
What scientist says a meteor evaporates?
Alfred1, you really do have mental issues. I did exactly what you described I didn’t do. Just like for your religious beliefs, you have to block out reality to maintain your delusions of intellect. Seek help.