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MULTIPLE DRAMATIC WORLDWIDE METEOR SIGHTINGS IN LAST 2 WEEKS
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Massive sonic boom from meteor
12 September 2006
A massive sonic boom rent the skies above Canterbury today as a meteor sped to its fiery end – but if, and where, it fell remains a mystery.
Scientists said the boom was heard as far afield as Wellington, and sightings of a bright speeding light, then cloud of smoke as the meteor apparently burst into a fireball, were reported all over Christchurch.
One astronomer said it was likely the meteor completely disintegrated when it burst into flames, and debris from the alien visitor was unlikely to be found.
The meteor was detected by instruments used to measure earthquakes at two Canterbury recording sites.
Kevin Graham was working in his garage workshop in Rolleston, 22km southwest of Christchurch, when he heard the boom.
His first thought was it was a September 11 anniversary attack, he said.
"I don't frighten very easily but I was just about shitting myself," he said.
He spoke by phone to his wife in the Christchurch suburb of Addington who had run outside because she thought the Addington Raceway stand was going to collapse.
"I ran outside because I thought my place was going to collapse as well," Mr Graham said.
He said the sound shook the garage and he could feel shock waves in the air.
"It started off with a little boom then a real massive boom. And I mean massive – like the daddy of all booms," he said.
"I was wondering what happened and I thought `oh, September 12', because we're a day ahead of the States.
Emergency services were inundated with calls from the public about the noise.
Christchurch Fire Communications received its first calls from the public started at 2.53pm today, with people reporting windows rattling and the air "shaking".
Police communications fielded over 100 calls in quick time.
Hanmer Springs police officer Senior Constable Chris Hughey likened the meteor to Haley's Comet, which he saw when it last passed near Earth in 1986.
"All it looked like was a vapour trail from a plane coming in at huge altitude," he said.
"It was a crystal clear day here in Hanmer and it appeared to have a red ball or something at the front. Then it split into about three and just disappeared."
Mr Hughey said he did not hear the loud sonic boom.
He had seen a few small meteors "coming in here and there" over the years but nothing like today's one.
"Never coming in on that angle.
"It just disintegrated at great altitude. It was moving, too. I don't know what speed they come in at, but it was going."
Resident superintendent of the University of Canterbury Mt John Observatory Alan Gilmore said the reports seemed to confirm the meteor burst into a "terminal fireball" while travelling over Canterbury, possibly as low as 60km above the ground.
The meteor would have broken through the atmosphere at a rate of between 10 and 20 kilometres per second.
The thicker air closer to earth could have slowed it down to about 40,000kph, and it was this rapid deceleration that would have caused it to break, Mr Gilmore said.
"The stress on the rock is so intense, that it just goes flash and breaks up into a ball of smoke or fire."
A couple of sightings had put the meteor landing in fields but Mr Gilmore said these seemed to have been discounted.
He could only make a "wild guess" at what size the meteor had been, but said he would be very surprised if it had been larger than a basketball.
It was an exciting, if not totally unusual event.
Nine meteorites had been recovered in New Zealand – the most recent being a four billion-year-old 1.3 kg rock which hit the home of Phil and Brenda Archer in Auckland on June 12, 2004.
The rock travelled up to 700 million kilometres from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter before punching through the couple's roof.
[link to www.stuff.co.nz]
Meteorite van fright
FULL NEWS INDEX ››
September 08, 2006
A HOLIDAY couple cheated death when a meteorite the size of a cricket ball crashed into their caravan.
Chris Nolan, 45, and wife Julie, 44, had just stepped from the van when the red-hot rock burst through a window at Mablethorpe, Lincs.
Psychiatric nurse Chris, of Huddersfield, West Yorks, said: “We heard this big smash and the meteorite crashed into the caravan. It missed us by a few feet.”
His children Luke, nine, and Charlotte, six, escaped unhurt too.
Around 1,000 meteorites hit Earth each year.
[link to www.thesun.co.uk]
Meteorite fall in Rajasthan village
Special Correspondent
10th incident in the State since 1995
The meteorite which fell at Kanvarpura village near Rawatbhata in Rajasthan recently.
JAIPUR: A meteorite fell at Kanvarpura village near Rawatbhata, where the Rajasthan Atomic Power Plant is situated, on August 29.
It weighs 6.8 kg and is of a rare type as it consists of 90 per cent iron.
"Unspectacular event"
At a press conference here on Monday, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) said the Kanvarpura incident was an "unspectacular event" compared to the meteorite shower in Gujarat recently.
GSI Deputy Director-General (western region) R.S. Goyal said no fireworks were seen as the meteorite fell around 1:37 p.m. "The bright sunlight masked any glow in the sky, and the event would have probably gone unreported but for two shepherds who reported the matter at a police station."
Frightens shepherds
Dr. Goyal said the shepherds got frightened after the meteorite fell with a loud sound. They beat the meteorite with lathis and dragged it some distance, before immersing it in water. GSI scientists, who rushed to the village, recovered the meteorite with the help of the local administration.
He said the meteorite could have caused devastation on an "unimaginable scale" if it had fallen on the Rawatbhata Atomic Power Plant. At least 10 cosmic bodies have fallen in the State, especially in its western parts, since 1995. The previous incident was reported at Bhuka village in Barmer district in June 2005.
[link to www.hindu.com]
Posted on Sat, Sep. 02, 2006email thisprint this
Meteorite is hottest suspect in Carmel roof holes mystery
Associated Press
CARMEL– Firefighters investigating reports of an explosion and smoke at a home found nothing but two tennis ball-sized holes in the roof that a research scientist thinks might have been caused by a meteorite.
When firefighters couldn’t find a cause for the Aug. 12 reports, homeowners Mick and Mary Zakrajsek called Nelson Shaffer, a research scientist with the Indiana Geological Survey in Bloomington and author of a book “Indiana Meteorites – Close Encounters from Outer Space.”
He examined the damage but could not find any obvious particles from outer space.
He plans to go back to the house when portions of the roof are torn out during repairs.
“In the history of humanity, there is a handful of times when meteorites fell and hit a building of any sort,” Shaffer said. “But it does happen.”
Firefighters think it did happen at the two-story home in a northern Indianapolis suburb, mainly because they have no better explanation for the holes in the wall and roof.
“Basically, we were clueless at the time as to what it could have been,” said Carmel Fire Lt. Alan Young, whose crew found no fire and finally began to wonder about the origin of the damage.
“I don’t know what meteorite rubble looks like, so I don’t know what I’d be looking for in the first place,” Young said.
Mick Zakrajsek, 48, a financial manager, heard the explosion while out walking in the neighborhood.
His wife likened the sound to a “huge hammer” that pounded the roof and sent her 21-year-old daughter rushing first upstairs and then back down to evacuate the family.
“People were coming from all over, because everybody had heard it,” said Jessica Zakrajsek.
Shaffer has been unable to distinguish between possible meteorite fragments and roofing particles. He hopes tests on materials to be removed during repairs will be more helpful.
“A number of people reported hearing sonic booms. This implies an object going very fast and not something that just fell off an airplane or was thrown off,” Shaffer said.
[link to www.fortwayne.com]
new zealand again 2 weeks ago.........
National News
Meteor rattles Hawke's Bay
1.00pm Tuesday August 29, 2006
A meteor lit up the Hawke's Bay sky last night and burned up with a boom that rattled windows.
"It was like an earthquake, but without the shaking," said one Akina woman.
Maraekakaho woman Liz Wilson heard "the weirdest noise, like a V8 engine" at about 9.45pm.
"We got in the car, as you do, and had a look around the place ... we so wanted to find a big, burning thing," she said.
An Otane woman said her father saw a "huge, big fireball with a long tail" overhead and heading towards Elsthorpe.
Bruce Hoyt was driving south along the Hawke's Bay Expressway when the sky lit up as if by lightning.
"It came down, heading south, then broke up into six to eight pieces, before fading out. A second or so later, I heard a bang.
"I would say the bang was from the meteor hitting the atmosphere. The sound came later because it travels slower than light."
That summation was right, said Hawke's Bay Astronomical Society president Gary Sparks. "When these things come in, it is explosive decompression. With the heat of re-entry they reach a critical temperature and they explode," he said.
The clear sky last night would have helped the sound travel. His guess was the meteor would have been no larger than a basketball.
August is one of the times of year when meteor showers were more frequent, Mr Sparks said, with the Earth - orbiting the Sun at 100,000km/h - meeting the dust trail of a meteor.
"What people saw last night was probably a rogue meteor, something that was not in the same path as the dust trail," Mr Sparks said.
- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY
[link to www.nzherald.co.nz]
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