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Meteorites (Meteors That Landed / Impacted)

SoundDust

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Meteorite hits Girl

Full story here

The odds against being hit by a meteorite are billions to one - but a teenager in North Yorkshire may have had one land on her foot.
Siobhan Cowton, 14, was getting into the family car outside her Northallerton home at 1030 BST on Thursday when a stone fell on her from the sky.

wouldn't even a small stone falling from a great height have caused some damage?:confused:
 
What I was more concerned about was that possibly the Meteroite was radioactive. Im pretty sure if it fits in the palm of your hand like the girl mentioned that its fairly safe to say she would of picked it up exposing herself to the radiation.
And yes I would assume that even a small stone falling this distance would do damage unless it already hit and bounced several times before it got to her foot.
 
When I saw this item on the lunchtime news they mentioned that there have been only 14 (I think) recorded meteorite falls in Britain. I take this to me 'seen falling and recovered' - presumably there have been many more actually found lying around.

[NB Jima: I corrected your link, as it led to the wrong beeb story!]
 
The stone could have come from Mars, according to expert on Earth impacts Dr Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University.

Love it! You expect to see that kind of wild speculation in Viz or the World Weekly News, what next, will he rexkon that there is a possibility that a Martian threw it at her.

What are the BBC doing using quotes like that, probably out of context and coaxed out of the guy by a journalist after an angle on the story.
 
Lucky Her

If the stone turns out to be a meteorite (and it certainly looks like a classical nicket-iron meteorite to me) then it will prove to be extremely valuable--you can count the number of Mars rocks in private hands on your fingers and toes--at least if your mother is also your sister.

As for the impact of the fall, that depends on how oblique the angle at which the stone falls through the atmosphere--some meterites make a soft landing.

It is also influenced by the weight of the stone and presumably by the speed it was travelling towards the Earth--if it was running straight at the Earth or catching up behind, its combined speed with that of the Earth might be anywhere from a soft lob to over 100,000 miles per hour.

Lucky little girl, I'd say! I would give one of my front teeth for a Mars meteorite, and having lost one to an accident, I am of the opinion of the proverb which says that "a tooth is worth as much as a diamond".
 
Meteor chunks hit Chicago-area homes

Indianapolis Star and Wire Report
March 28, 2003

Several homes in a Chicago suburb were apparently struck by chunks of a meteor after people in Indiana and Illinois reported seeing a bright blue light in the midnight sky, police said.

Rocklike objects pierced the roofs of two homes in Park Forest, Ill., south of Chicago, said police Capt. Francis DioGuardi. No injuries were reported.

Another chunk slightly damaged the siding of another home, he said.

People in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio called police agencies about 1 a.m. Thursday to report seeing a bright blue light in the sky. Sgt. Jeff Mangiaracina, with the Sheriff's Department in Will County, Ill., said he received calls from as far away as Wisconsin.

Locally, the Indianapolis office of the National Weather Service received dozens of calls, said meteorologist John Ogren.
From here.
 
Recovered Meteor Reveals Solar Secrets
AFP

The Meteor Streaks Across the Sky

May 8, 2003 — The extraordinary find of a meteorite that was photographed as it plummeted to Earth has helped resolve some of the mysteries about the solar system's rocky wanderers, but also created new ones.

The shooting star was photographed on April 6, 2002, by a time-lapse camera set up in southern Germany by the European Fireball Network, a group of astronomers.

The picture revealed a 91-kilometer (57-mile) trail as the rock entered the Earth's atmosphere after a journey through space that lasted millions of years.

The astronomers traced the trajectory of the path they saw and on July 14 they found a 1.75-kilo (3.85-pound) chunk of the debris near the turreted castle of Neuschwanstein, in Bavaria.

It was only the fourth time that meteorites have been recovered from detected meteors, despite the sky-scrutinizing efforts of the European Fireball Network and others around the world.

In a study to be published on Thursday in the journal Nature, astronomers, led by Pavel Spurny of the Czech Republic's Academy of Sciences, calculated the Neuschwanstein meteorite's trajectory and estimated its age on the basis of its exposure to the cosmic rays of deep space.

Neuschwanstein, the astronomers were startled to find, came from the same "meteor stream" as the first of the four historic space rocks — a 4.5-kilo (9.9-pound) chunk found in 1959 in Pribram, in what was then Czechoslovakia.

But the Neuschwanstein meteorite is much older than Pribram — it spent 48 million years in space, compared to 12 million years — and has a quite different chemical composition.

It has less iron oxide, magnesium, silicon and calcium among its key elements and is more granular.

If Neuschwanstein came from an asteroid, the evidence challenges assumptions that the solar system's building rubble is comprised of similar chemical masses.

"It seems the meteor stream in which these objects were flowing is more heterogeneous than is usually supposed," said Jack Drummond, of the Starfire Optical Range in New Mexico, in an accompanying article in Nature.

"Looking skyward, knowing where these rocks came from, we may begin to understand something of the early history of our solar system."
(Discovery)
 
boy narrowly missed by meteorite

news.com.au

" A 10-YEAR-OLD boy has narrowly missed being struck by a suspected falling meteorite outside his home.

Anthony Elliss-Galati claims he was standing in the driveway of his home 40km south of Perth last week when a dark shape came hurtling out of the sky towards him.

He said at first he thought it was a bird, but then he got scared. "I saw it coming and it was getting closer and closer and I couldn't see if it was bird or a jet or a plane or something, but it was coming straight at me so I jumped out of the way real quick."

Anthony hid behind a car before seeing the object hit the driveway and shatter.

His mother, Jennifer, was working inside when Anthony came running into the house, yelling: "Mum, there's rocks coming out of the sky. Quick, come and have a look."

Ms Elliss said she came outside to find a dent in the driveway surrounded by broken fragments of rock with a silver shine on the outside. The fragments were warm, but did not burn when touched, she said.

It instantly reminded Ms Elliss of a meteorite she had seen in her school days.

She has asked the WA Museum to examine the fragments to determine if they came from a meteor or some other space junk.

Otherwise, she puts the event down to divine intervention - Anthony had been fighting with his brothers that morning in the exact spot where the fragments hit the ground. "
 
Wow -- that ranks right up there with
the minister being struck by lightning in the pulpit...
what are the odds?!?
Or is this a poltergeist case, in that one child was
SO angry he called a rock to fall (either consciously
or unconsciously*) where the other siblings were arguing?

Now, the skeptic in me says the kids had blasted
the hole in the driveway and then needed a way
to cover it up. "I know, lets say a meteor fell and did this!"

The approaching shadow is also not consistent with
falling meteors -- would a softball size meteor falling
at speed even leave more than a pea size shadow
for more than a split second?

Wouldn't the meteor have to be coming directly from the
direction of the sun to have a shadow that lingered
on the ground -- at least in any perceptible way?

In any event -- a VERY Fortean story!

TVgeek
*I meant "subconsciously"... thats what I get for typing while unconscious! ;)
 
HEAVENLY HOME WRECKER
Saturday September 27, 2003

When Roy Fausset walked into his Joseph Street home after work Tuesday evening, he knew immediately that something was very, very wrong.

"The powder room door was open and it looked like an artillery shell had hit the room," he said.

Something had fallen with enough force to punch a hole through the roof and two floors before coming to rest in the crawl space beneath the house.

It was a sandy-colored rock that appeared to have been burned around its edges. Preliminary tests by scientists at Tulane University indicate this particular rock came from outer space.

If so, that makes it an exceedingly rare phenomenon. Meteorites enter the Earth's gravitational field with some frequency; all but a tiny percent of them burn up during their passage through the atmosphere -- what are commonly called "shooting stars." So far as could be determined, the Joseph Street landing was a first for the city.

"We found olivine, pyroxene, plagioclase and troilite," a combination of minerals often found in meteorites, said Stephen Nelson, chairman of Tulane's earth and environmental sciences department.

Nelson used X-ray diffraction Friday afternoon to double-check the type of individual minerals that make up the rock. He had first identified the rock as rhyolite, a form of volcanic rock found in Mexico and south Texas.

The minerals Nelson found don't automatically mean it's a meteorite, he said, because they're also found in the Earth's mantle, deep underneath the planet's crust.

"But we don't commonly see pieces of mantle falling out of the sky," he said. "And the black crust, which I thought was a weathering line at first, perhaps it's a fusion crust -- material that melted as it passed through the atmosphere."

Nelson said the rock is known as a "stony meteorite," a type more common than the black, ironlike rocks that have become the archetypal meteorites in the public imagination.

Fausset said neighbors told him they heard what sounded like a car crash just after 4 p.m., but they didn't know it was his home being hit.

"One of my neighbors on South Tonti Street had two children in her back yard, eating Popsicles, and they heard a terrific noise," he said. "And a lady next door to her heard it. She was indoors and ran out into her back yard, but didn't see anything."

"But if it had hit 100 feet away in that back yard, it could have killed one or all of those people," Fausset said.

Finding the damage inside his home came as a shock, he said: "We had just renovated the powder room and now there was plaster everywhere. I looked up at the ceiling and saw this big hole."

A quick check in the adjoining utility room revealed another hole in the ceiling and what looked like a broken ceiling joist.

"I went outside and looked up and about midway down the front of the roof, there was a hole about the size of a basketball," he said.

Fausset immediately called his insurance agent, who suggested he check upstairs to look for any more damage.

In his daughter's second-floor room, Fausset discovered that something had smashed through the ceiling there, too, and it had demolished an antique wicker desk before cutting a neat hole in the wall-to-wall carpet and the flooring beneath it.

Back in the first-floor bathroom, Fausset found another hole leading through the floor to the crawl space.

"That's when I called the police," he said. When officers arrived, they found several chunks of rock beneath the hole in the bottom floor that matched fragments found in Fausset's daughter's room.

"I'm in shock," Fausset said Friday after learning the rock had been identified as a meteorite. "Oh, that's scary. I will certainly go to church this Sunday, because the Lord was certainly sending me a message."

And the meteorite?

"I guess I'll go put it in my safe-deposit box, or just frame it," he said.
 
Blimey! Another one:

Meteorite wrecks houses in India
At least 20 people are reported to have been injured after a meteorite crashed to Earth in eastern India.

Reports say hundreds of people in the state of Orissa panicked when the fireball streamed across the sky.

Burning fragments were said to have fallen over a wide area, destroying several houses.

An official in Orissa said the authorities were assessing the damage and trying to recover what was left of the meteor.

Reports from Orissa said windows rattled as the meteor passed overhead.

"It was all there for just a few seconds but it was like daylight everywhere," one resident said.

Rarity

Experts estimate about 100 tons of extraterrestrial dust grains fall to earth each day.

Occasionally, a dark pebble or fist-size object will rain down, with boulder-sized objects or bigger being a historical rarity.

The only recorded fatality from a meteor was an Egyptian dog that had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in 1911.

Seven decades later, scientists recognised the dog had been struck by a meteorite from Mars.
 
Re: Meteor Crash Injures Five

Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
"Such celestial occurrences are common in space but not visible to the naked eye. This is a rare phenomenon in this region," said Jaydev Kar, a scientist at the Pathani Samant Planetorium in Orissa's capital Bhubaneswar.
[/B]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../20030928/sc_afp/india_meteorite_030928195724
What? Meteors, crashing into houses?

There's a thing that doesn't happen much much, round these parts, neither, squire! ;)
 
rynner said:
Blimey! Another one:

Meteorite wrecks houses in India

"The only recorded fatality from a meteor was an Egyptian dog that had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in 1911.

Seven decades later, scientists recognised the dog had been struck by a meteorite from Mars."
Sometimes, these days, I feel like we're taking part in some sort of vast and incomprehensible Fortean joke and nobody's getting it! :confused:
 
Local recalls falling of Miller Meteorite

A recent Sun-Times story on meteors caught the attention of Charlsie Stark DuBois of Heber Springs, who told us a fascinating story of awas 36 pound Miller Meteor that fell at her grandparent's farm on a Sunday morning, July 13, 1930. She said she had documentation and photographs to show us. Her mother, Opal Bailey Stark passed away in March of this year. Charlsie was going through her mother's files, and found information, which she felt, was important on the Miller Meteorite.

Ms. DuBois's grandparents, Julian and Pearl Bailey, owned a farm on Hwy. 92 in the religious community of Miller now called Greers Ferry. Residents of that area will be more acquainted with the farm location now which Todd Davis owns across the street from F. L. Davis' hardware store. The oak tree in the front yard is still standing where the meteorite rested for a short time.

On this particular humid Sunday morning, the Bailey family was getting ready to attend the Post Oak Baptist Church services. Their large family had their usual breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, hot biscuits and to die for chocolate gravy. Dressed in their Sunday best the family was about ready to go out the door and pick up kinfolk and neighbors on their way to church. Julian had the only mode of transportation in the area, which was a pickup truck. He had made sideboards and benches in the bed of the truck so everyone could be comfortable.

About 9:00 a.m. an earsplitting sound of roaring and popping filled the air. The house and ground vibrated. Little seven-year-old Leon Bailey said, "I think an airplane hit the ground."

Julian charged out the door with his sons, Oather, Kenneth, and Leon following. Swirls of smoke filled the air above a dry dirt roadbed next to his crop of waist high corn about fifty yards from their home. Julian hotfooted it over to the smoldering glowing object in the ground with just the tip of it showing. He did not know what it was.

Julian's brother John and his nephew Hobert were walking over to Julian's house to ride to church with them. Suddenly they heard and saw this heavenly body hurling to the earth from outerspace. He said, "The flight of this object racing through space looked like a white pigeon, but was moving much faster." Continuing he said, "When it landed it mushroomed into a huge cloud of dust."

The hole it made in the ground was 18 inches in depth, and was coated with a thin ebony crust. This was a stony meteorite, not a metallic one and shaped like a heart. The specimen was unique in that the margins of the under surface were radically grooved. These markings were developed while passing rapidly through the earth's atmosphere, implying that the specimen did not turn over while in transit, but kept on one straight path to the earth. (ref. Reed)

Nothing was going to deter Julian, a staunch Baptist and Democrat from continuing his plans of attending church that Sunday morning. After they attended the services, they came home to a crowd of people from surrounding communities viewing the strange object.

When it had cooled down some John was going to pick it up, but Julian said, "No, it may be contaminated or it might explode."

Finally after they saw that it was harmless, John dug it up, and with the help of Julian's son Oather carried it to the big Oak tree in their front yard. Kenneth and Leon, the younger sons, cleared the path of the people who came far and wide to observe this marvel. People began chipping at the meteorite with their pocketknives getting pieces of it to take home. One man brought a hammer and began pounding on it. The rural postman offered to buy it for $20.00. The heart shaped meteorite weighed 36 pounds and 10 ounces. The local Headliner newspaper wanted to do a story on this occurrence. Julian got his nephew, Hobert Bailey out of school to tell about the falling. Hobert often told people, "I got out of school and Uncle Julian paid me."

Julian was an enterprising man. He hauled it to two fairs, charging people a small fee to see it, but that was more trouble than he anticipated, so back under the Oak tree it stood for quite some time.

Realizing he had a diamond in the rough oddity, Julian took bids from various museums to sell the meteorite.

Later Julian sold the meteorite for $800.00 to J. P. Morgan, a wealthy businessman in New York. After he sold it, he said he had enough money to get a new car. It is believed that Julian purchased a new 1932 Plymouth car with the money.

November 11, 1930, "A New Meteorite" (the Miller Meteorite) through the generosity of Mr. J. P. Morgan was given to The American Museum of celestial immigrants for observation. The J. Lawrence Smith Fund of the National Academy of Sciences gave a grant towards the cost of investigating this Meteorite.

It is interesting that we have many unique, mysterious happenings in our own backyard of Cleburne County. There are acres of virgin land in this area of Arkansas, which have never been fully explored, land that has been in families since the migration of their ancestors. The State Geologists are heading back to our area soon to continue their study on rocks, fossils, etc. But we Razorbacks aren't too surprised. After all this is the natural state.

Thought I would share this interesting tidbit before closing. It is amazing that earth happenings can be triggered by the impact of large meteorites. In 1980 it was discovered by Nobel Prize winning physicist Luis Alvarez and his geologist son Walter that the dinosaurs and thousands of other species of plants and animals became extinct about 65 million years ago as a result of environmental changes by the impact of a giant meteorite.

And as proof, the crater (Chicxulub) was found at the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula. That gives one something to think about, doesn't it?
 
Tue 30 Mar 2004


Five-billion-year-old rock quarrymen didn't expect

IAN JOHNSTON


THERE was a rumble of thunder and then a bolt from the sky struck the earth with such force onlookers thought Judgment Day itself had come.

Scotland’s first recorded sighting of a meteorite in 1804 stunned workers at the High Possil Quarry in Glasgow.

But after scientists came to investigate the lump of curious black rock unearthed by workmen, it proved to be the final proof that rocks did indeed come from outer space.

Previously it had been thought meteor strikes were the result of stones thrown up by freak weather conditions like tornadoes or water-spouts or were the result of God’s wrath.

But a spate of observed meteor strikes at the turn of the 19th century, including the High Possil case, finally convinced scientists what was really happening.

A fragment of the meteorite, as old as the solar system itself at nearly five billion years, will go on display at Glasgow University’s Hunterian Museum from Friday to celebrate the bicentenary.

It was the morning of 5 April, 1804, when a series of bangs was heard between Falkirk and Glasgow. A short time later, a smoking trail crashed into the ground at High Possil, witnessed by a group of workmen and other witnesses, including two boys and a dog.

The quarrymen found a hole about 18in deep and 15in wide, and at the bottom there was a black rock, which they threw aside as they had been expecting to find a cannonball.

But later a party of professors from the University of Glasgow, together with the landowner, interviewed the witnesses, and recovered parts of the stone.

It was subsequently examined by scientists in Scotland and England and recognised as a meteorite.

There had been previous falls in Yorkshire in 1795 and at l’Aigle in France in 1803, but early scientists who claimed stones did fall from the sky were dismissed as cranks.

Dr John Faithfull, the curator of geology at the Hunterian, said: "This was one of the very first meteorites that was known to be a meteorite. After the one in Yorkshire, one guy got obsessed with the idea but people thought he was mad. But after the ones in France and High Possil, it became accepted thunderbolts and everything else had nothing to do with it."


‘This particular kind of meteorite is one of the very oldest things on earth’
DR JOHN FAITHFULL



Dr Faithfull is examining whether there are tiny particles of material from before the formation of the solar system.

"This particular kind of meteorite is one of the very oldest things on earth. They are about the same age as the formation of the solar system and sometimes you can find tiny diamonds which are older even than the solar system."

Asteroids, the larger version of meteors, are now thought to have caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, and earlier this month mankind had its closest known encounter with an asteroid when a 100ft-wide piece of rock came within 26,500 miles of the Earth.

A newspaper report from the time described how the impact of the Possil meteorite was witnessed by workmen, boys, a man up a tree and a dog. It was heard "to resemble four reports from the firing of cannon, afterwards the sound of a bell, or rather of a gong, with a violently whizzing noise".

The newspaper reported: "The dog, on hearing the noise, ran home, seemingly in a great fright. The [quarry] overseer, during the continuance of the noise, on looking up to the atmosphere, observed in it a misty commotion, which occasioned in him a considerable alarm. He called out to the man on the tree: ‘Come down, I think there is some judgment coming upon us’, and says that the man on the tree had scarcely got upon the ground, when something struck with great force ... splashing mud and water for about twenty feet around."

John Davies, of Edinburgh’s Royal Observatory, said the loud bangs in the sky could well have been caused by the meteor breaking the sound barrier.

"Huge amounts of material arrives from space every day. Most of it is very fine material that burns up in the atmosphere. But grapefruit-sized objects can survive and reach the ground," he said.

"This does happen fairly regularly, but a lot of it lands in the sea, in uninhabited areas or at night.

"No-one has ever been killed by a meteorite that we know about, but there was a lady in Alabama in the 1950s who was hit. She got a nasty bruise on her leg after one came through the roof."

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=363992004
 
April 14, 2004
Contact: Steve Koppes
(773) 702-8366
[email protected]


Scientists size-up, classify meteorite that nearly landed in their backyards



The meteorites that punched through roofs in Park Forest, Ill., on the evening of March 26, 2003, came from a larger mass that weighed no less than 1,980 pounds before it hit the atmosphere, according to scientific analyses led by the University of Chicago’s Steven Simon, who himself also happens to live in Park Forest.

Simon, a Senior Research Associate in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, and seven co-authors will publish these and other findings in the April issue of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science. Simon holds a unique distinction among scientists: his home sits in the middle of the strewnfield, the area from which the meteorites were recovered.

“I don’t know of any other time when a meteoriticist was in the middle of a strewnfield,” said Lawrence Grossman, Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago and one of Simon’s co-authors.

In fact, Simon actually saw the flash the meteorite created. He had the drapes closed when the rock entered the sky over Illinois, but “the whole sky lit up,” he said.

Grossman, who lives in Flossmoor, not far from Park Forest, also experienced the meteorite’s arrival firsthand. He was awakened by the sound of the meteorite entering the atmosphere that night. “I heard a detonation,” Grossman said. “It was sharp enough to wake me up.”

The team calculated the projectile’s size range based on measurements of the galactic cosmic rays that it absorbed. Measurements of a radioactive form of cobalt provided the projectile’s minimum size. “If the object is too small the cosmic rays will just pass through and not make 60cobalt,” Simon explained.

Simon and Grossman classify the meteorite as an L5 chondrite, a type of stony meteorite, one low in iron that was heated for a long period of time inside its parent body, probably an asteroid. “It’s a fairly common type of meteorite,” Simon said.

The Park Forest meteorite also showed signs that it had been highly shocked, probably when it was part of a rock that was broken from a much larger asteroid following a collision. The evidence for shock includes shocked feldspar. Apollo astronauts recovered shocked specimens of the mineral from the moon, as well, Simon said. Impact shock was common in the early history of the solar system because of the large quantity of interplanetary debris then in existence.

Witnesses in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri reported seeing the fireball that the meteorite produced as it broke up in the atmosphere, Simon and his colleagues reported. Local residents collected hundreds of meteorite fragments totaling approximately 65 pounds from an area extending from Crete in the south to the southern end of Olympia Fields in the north. Located in Chicago’s south suburbs, “this is the most densely populated region to be hit by a meteorite shower in modern times,” the authors write.

One meteorite narrowly missed striking a sleeping Park Forest resident after it burst through the ceiling of a bedroom. The meteorite sliced through some window blinds, cratered the windowsill, then bounced across the room and broke a mirror before coming to rest.

The meteorites were recovered from a track that trends southeast to northwest. Satellite data analyzed by Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario indicates that the meteorite traveled from southwest to northeast, however.

“The meteorite broke up in the atmosphere, and the fragments encountered strong westerly winds as they fell,” the authors write. “The smallest pieces were deflected the furthest eastward from the trajectory, and the largest pieces, carrying more momentum, were deflected the least.”

Contributing to the paper in addition to Simon and Grossman were the University of Chicago’s Robert Clayton and the late Toshiko Mayeda; Jim Schwade of the Planetary Studies Foundation in Crystal Lake, Ill.; Paul Sipiera of Harper College in Palatine, Ill.; John Wacker of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.; and Meenakshi Wadhwa of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Their research was supported by grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the Planetary Studies Foundation.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040414.parkforest.shtml

also at:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040415010340.htm

Emps
 
How to Get Their Attention

The Chicago meteorite bombardment reminds me of some classic cases of scientists being nearly bopped on the head by Fortean evidence, for example, the "discovery" that rocks really do fall from the sky, and the "lightning ball" that flew through an airplane full of scientists quite some way back.

Wonder if some of the famous "rock showers" from Fort and elsewhere weren't the remnants of an exploding meteorite.

Ever since seeing "Galaxy Quest" where an alien spaceship crashlands on a SF convention, I have a phantasy about a U.F.O. landing at a CSICOP convention.

Other fun cases of Fortean evidence Hopping on Pop would be:

Bigfoot hits biologist's car

Harry Houdini returns from beyond during Amazing Randi demonstration of séance trickery

Rain of fish knocks out ichthyologist on vacation (this one nearly happened)

I'd give a tooth, myself, for a Mars rock, and I know what a tooth is worth, having lost one doing housework: bounced my head off of a chair and hit a six inch thick beam we used as a shelf. Taught me a valuable lesson: don't do housework--it's dangerous. Old proverb "A tooth is more valuable than a diamond". Amen to that. Especially a front tooth.
 
'Weird' meteorite may be from Mars moon

14:02 22 April 04



A unique meteorite that fell on a Soviet military base in Yemen in 1980 may have come from one of the moons of Mars. Several meteorites from the Red Planet have been found on Earth, but this could be the only piece of Martian moon rock.

Andrei Ivanov, who is based at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry in Moscow, Russia, spent two decades puzzling over the fist-sized Kaidun meteorite before he decided that it must be a chip off Phobos, the larger of the two Martian moons. "I can't find a better candidate," Ivanov told New Scientist.

The Kaidun meteorite is like no other in the world and 23,000 of them have been catalogued. It is made of many small chunks of material, including minerals never seen before.

Working with Michael Zolensky of the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Ivanov used an electron microscope to look at the space rock's crystal structure, peered through its minerals using X-rays and vaporised fragments to catalogue the elements inside. And every sample turned out to be something "new and weird", says Zolensky.


Volcanic debris


Among the odd materials in the meteorite were two fragments of volcanic rock which only forms in massive, planet-like bodies with a core, mantle and crust. But much of the meteorite is a kind of carbon-rich material that only occurs in asteroids.

Zolensky thinks this paradox could be resolved if the meteorite comes from a Martian moon. Both Phobos and Deimos are thought to be asteroids captured by Mars as they wandered through space. That would explain the carbonaceous material.

And the pieces of volcanic rock could be bits of Mars, thrown into orbit when other asteroids crashed into the planet. Phobos is the more likely candidate: it orbits only 6000 kilometres from the planet's surface, much closer than Deimos, and so has probably mopped up a lot more fragments of Mars rock.

The idea is plausible, if somewhat speculative, says Sara Russell, a meteorite expert at the Natural History Museum in London. "There have been no landers sent to Phobos and so almost nothing is known about the composition and geology of this body."

Zolensky thinks that an unusual asteroid could have been the source. Hope of resolving the mystery rests with the European Space Agency, which has been asked by UK scientists to consider sending a mission to Phobos as part of its Mars exploration programme.

Journal reference: Solar System Research (vol 38, p 97)

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994902
 
It's not at all clear whether this somehow might be related to Emperor's report from three days ago.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/13/nz.meteorite.reut/index.html
Grapefruit-sized meteorite strikes house
'It was like a bomb had gone off'

Sunday, June 13, 2004 Posted: 5:54 AM EDT (0954 GMT)


WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Reuters) -- A grapefruit-sized meteorite smashed through the roof of a New Zealand house, hitting a couch and bouncing off the ceiling before coming to rest under a computer.

The 1.3 kg (2.9 lb) chunk of space debris dropped out of the sky and plummeted through the tiled roof of the Auckland home on Saturday.

"I was in the kitchen doing breakfast and there was this almighty explosion," owner Brenda Archer told the Sunday Star-Times newspaper.

"It was like a bomb had gone off. I couldn't see anything, there was just dust."

Archer's one-year-old grandson had been playing nearby minutes before it hit.

It is only the ninth meteorite found in New Zealand and the first to hit a home.

The Archers, who are following expert advice by drying the rock out in their oven, plan to sell it or give it to a museum.

Experts believe the meteorite, a chunk of an asteroid, could be worth more than NZ$10,000 ($6,290), the newspaper said.

Copyright 2004 Reuters.
 
Why would it need to be dried in an oven? I would have thought it would have been pretty hot anyway.
 
maybe because meteors are mostly made up of ice...? some of it probably melts along the fall, but what would remain could indeed be moist.
 
From the Sydney Morning Herald.
Meteoric surprise for NZ house
June 13, 2004 - 10:05AM

A black lump that crashed into an Auckland family's living room was identified as only the ninth meteorite to be found in New Zealand, television's One News reported.

The 1.3kg, four billion-year-old rock fell through the roof of the house in the suburb of Ellerslie about 9am (0700 AEST).

"There was just a huge explosion and we looked around and there was just dust everywhere," householder Brenda Archer told the station.

"I don't know what to make of it, it's unbelievable. I'm just glad no one was sitting on the couch because they just would have got absolutely crowned."

Specialists were convinced the rock was a meteorite, but would not know where it had come from until it was fully examined, One News said.

Overseas dealers were expected to offer the Archers cash for the rock.

"Falling through a roof is really an exceptional event that rarely happens, and this is a beautiful large specimen," Joel Schiff of Auckland University said.

© 2004 AAP
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One Brit paper had the headline 'Meteor misses grandchild'.
Sounds as if it popped in to visit!
 
quote:

"There was just a huge explosion and we looked around and there was just dust everywhere," householder Brenda Archer told the station.


Don't know about Oz Anome but a lot of the buildings in NZ look like they'd benefit from being hit by a meteor....
 
I was just thinking we should be sending hardhats to Bulldog and any other Kiwis on the board.

[EDIT]I was responding to Escargot, but since you ask, I know a couple where a meteor could cause millions of dollars in improvements.
 
Tuesday, July 6, 2004

They're after what's rocking our world

Brothers hunt world for meteorites -- and now they're here

By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

TACOMA -- In search of space booty, the Hupe brothers have bartered with Bedouins, scoured the Sahara, jet-trotted halfway across America on a moment's notice, bankrolls in hand.

But the Hupes' latest meteorite hunt zooms in right here at home.

The two brothers want a piece of the action from the stunning June 3 meteor show, a booming flash-dance over Snohomish that turned night to day.

They aren't alone. Three teams from three states are working the fall, trying to trace the trajectory of the meteor, and the site where it may, possibly, have deposited a bit of exotic and -- if discovered -- pricey debris from outer space.

"The meteor fell on my birthday, and it's in my own back yard. It's ridiculous!" says Adam Hupe, 42. He's 11 months older than Greg and equally excitable when talking falling space rocks.

The brothers, overgrown Hardy Boys who sold a multimillion-dollar computer company to focus on their hobby, have amassed one of the world's largest private collections of meteorites in a few short years.

"They're relatively new to the scene, but they've rather quickly become major players," says Robert Matson, a respected space scientist working out of Seal Beach, Calif.

Most of the Hupes' specimens come from North African desert lands, and some are worth thousands more than their weight in gold. But the brothers have no Washington space specimens.

No surprise. An estimated 13,000 meteors fall to our planet each year. Yet only five scientifically recognized meteorites have ever been found in our state.



"Believe me," says Adam, "once the first confirmed piece shows up here, I'm all over it -- we both are."

The Hupes, who'll be featured in an upcoming Outside magazine profile, are local go-to guys for hopeful earthlings bearing strange black rocks. And they have already fielded some duds from our June fireworks show.

Callers reported weird piles of rocks that suddenly appeared in Shoreline after the June 3 streaker. They turned out to be road gravel. A big black chunk found near Sea-Tac was asphalt -- more terrestrial ho-hum.

"You have to tell these people gingerly, let them down slowly," says Greg.

"They get so excited," says Adam.

Alien rocks fetch big bucks

The Hupes (pronounced "Who-pays") grew up as the only boys among six children. They were buddies from the get-go.

"Were we close? Yeah!" says Adam.

"Oh, yeah," says Greg, head nodding.

They began treasure hunting in earnest at ages 11 and 12, when their father, an Army general, gave them their first metal detector, used to dig up centuries-old treasures in old buildings. The two call meteorite hunting "the ultimate treasure hunt."

Greg and Adam were in their 20s when they launched a computer hardware business in their mother's basement and garage. By the time they retired at 37 and 38, they had turned it into the multimillion-dollar-a-year enterprise called Computer Performance.

The Hupes had all the boy toys -- homes, sleek cars, RVs, boats -- and no time to use them. Weary of long hours and constant pressure, they cashed out just before the stock market collapsed, dumped the "stuff" and turned their attention to the hunt.

Currently, Adam lives in a tiny, bare-bones apartment near Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. Greg is headed out to Florida in a U-Haul truck he bought at a bargain rate, with plans to hunt treasure from sunken galleons and search fossils. They're both single, and if heaven falls, travel-ready in an instant.

Insiders say the Hupes have brought a new business sensibility to the collection of meteorites. They invest serious money in their North African expeditions, hire dealers who speak Berber dialects to recruit nomad hunters, and offer sizable rewards for discoveries.

When not overseas themselves, they communicate with dealers via e-mail and cell phone, which is how they learned about the discovery of half a martian rock. They called their dealer, told him to send out nomads to find the other part. When their man had Part Two in hand, Greg hopped a 30-hour flight, met him at the airport, and tried to subdue his eagerness as he fit the pieces together.

The two had a code phrase -- "The eagle has landed" -- to confirm the fit.

When Greg uttered it, Adam began to whoop and holler.

"And I had to remain calm and composed!" says Greg. "If they know you're excited, you won't get it."

Meteors from asteroids are relatively common. But the brothers' chunk of the Red Planet is one of only 31 confirmed martians on record. There are also 31 confirmed finds from the moon.

The Hupes have prized pieces from both, including the coveted "Desert Lady," so-called because the large lunar rock passed through so many hands before they acquired it.

A single thin slice of that white-and-gray moon meteorite listed on the Bonhams and Butterfields auction site at ,000 to ,000. It sold for even more.

"Once you pull something like that, you're addicted," says Adam.

"It's life-changing," says Greg.

Collectors elbow out scientists

Meteorites have always excited the human imagination. Each is a story, an ancient telling of planetary origins that stirs big-think philosophizing.

"You're holding something billions of years old in your hand. You're holding the oldest material in the solar system -- the beginning of time as we know it," says Greg.

The thrill of the find hasn't changed, but the market surrounding it has transformed dramatically.

A half-century ago, the leading collector in the country drove around Arizona in a beat-up pickup, with a giant magnet strapped underneath.

Today, private dealers trade hundreds of specimens on eBay and billions-year-old space rocks pull million-dollar prices in heady collecting circles. The lure of loot has set off a modern-day gold rush, with Indiana Jones adventurers scouting far corners of the Earth, aggressive dealers cutting secret deals for specimens, and collectors paying stratospheric prices for crumbs of planetary crusts.

The Hupes -- who say they only occasionally sell meteorites, and only to support their habit -- are in the thick of the collecting fray, ready to act in an eye blink.

Last year, Adam had a flight booked to Illinois 10 minutes after learning a meteorite had crashed through the roof of a police and fire station outside Chicago. He set up shop in front of the station, working out of a rental car trunk, cash in hand. In a TV interview, he told viewers with fresh finds to "bring 'em on in" -- he'd be the one in front of the station in the yellow jacket.

Some 30 other dealers and collectors from around the globe were right behind him. "Competitors saw it on the news. The next day, they all showed up in yellow jackets," says Adams. Prices quickly escalated from
Tuesday, July 6, 2004

They're after what's rocking our world

Brothers hunt world for meteorites -- and now they're here

By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

TACOMA -- In search of space booty, the Hupe brothers have bartered with Bedouins, scoured the Sahara, jet-trotted halfway across America on a moment's notice, bankrolls in hand.

But the Hupes' latest meteorite hunt zooms in right here at home.

The two brothers want a piece of the action from the stunning June 3 meteor show, a booming flash-dance over Snohomish that turned night to day.

They aren't alone. Three teams from three states are working the fall, trying to trace the trajectory of the meteor, and the site where it may, possibly, have deposited a bit of exotic and -- if discovered -- pricey debris from outer space.

"The meteor fell on my birthday, and it's in my own back yard. It's ridiculous!" says Adam Hupe, 42. He's 11 months older than Greg and equally excitable when talking falling space rocks.

The brothers, overgrown Hardy Boys who sold a multimillion-dollar computer company to focus on their hobby, have amassed one of the world's largest private collections of meteorites in a few short years.

"They're relatively new to the scene, but they've rather quickly become major players," says Robert Matson, a respected space scientist working out of Seal Beach, Calif.

Most of the Hupes' specimens come from North African desert lands, and some are worth thousands more than their weight in gold. But the brothers have no Washington space specimens.

No surprise. An estimated 13,000 meteors fall to our planet each year. Yet only five scientifically recognized meteorites have ever been found in our state.



"Believe me," says Adam, "once the first confirmed piece shows up here, I'm all over it -- we both are."

The Hupes, who'll be featured in an upcoming Outside magazine profile, are local go-to guys for hopeful earthlings bearing strange black rocks. And they have already fielded some duds from our June fireworks show.

Callers reported weird piles of rocks that suddenly appeared in Shoreline after the June 3 streaker. They turned out to be road gravel. A big black chunk found near Sea-Tac was asphalt -- more terrestrial ho-hum.

"You have to tell these people gingerly, let them down slowly," says Greg.

"They get so excited," says Adam.

Alien rocks fetch big bucks

The Hupes (pronounced "Who-pays") grew up as the only boys among six children. They were buddies from the get-go.

"Were we close? Yeah!" says Adam.

"Oh, yeah," says Greg, head nodding.

They began treasure hunting in earnest at ages 11 and 12, when their father, an Army general, gave them their first metal detector, used to dig up centuries-old treasures in old buildings. The two call meteorite hunting "the ultimate treasure hunt."

Greg and Adam were in their 20s when they launched a computer hardware business in their mother's basement and garage. By the time they retired at 37 and 38, they had turned it into the multimillion-dollar-a-year enterprise called Computer Performance.

The Hupes had all the boy toys -- homes, sleek cars, RVs, boats -- and no time to use them. Weary of long hours and constant pressure, they cashed out just before the stock market collapsed, dumped the "stuff" and turned their attention to the hunt.

Currently, Adam lives in a tiny, bare-bones apartment near Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. Greg is headed out to Florida in a U-Haul truck he bought at a bargain rate, with plans to hunt treasure from sunken galleons and search fossils. They're both single, and if heaven falls, travel-ready in an instant.

Insiders say the Hupes have brought a new business sensibility to the collection of meteorites. They invest serious money in their North African expeditions, hire dealers who speak Berber dialects to recruit nomad hunters, and offer sizable rewards for discoveries.

When not overseas themselves, they communicate with dealers via e-mail and cell phone, which is how they learned about the discovery of half a martian rock. They called their dealer, told him to send out nomads to find the other part. When their man had Part Two in hand, Greg hopped a 30-hour flight, met him at the airport, and tried to subdue his eagerness as he fit the pieces together.

The two had a code phrase -- "The eagle has landed" -- to confirm the fit.

When Greg uttered it, Adam began to whoop and holler.

"And I had to remain calm and composed!" says Greg. "If they know you're excited, you won't get it."

Meteors from asteroids are relatively common. But the brothers' chunk of the Red Planet is one of only 31 confirmed martians on record. There are also 31 confirmed finds from the moon.

The Hupes have prized pieces from both, including the coveted "Desert Lady," so-called because the large lunar rock passed through so many hands before they acquired it.

A single thin slice of that white-and-gray moon meteorite listed on the Bonhams and Butterfields auction site at $45,000 to $65,000. It sold for even more.

"Once you pull something like that, you're addicted," says Adam.

"It's life-changing," says Greg.

Collectors elbow out scientists

Meteorites have always excited the human imagination. Each is a story, an ancient telling of planetary origins that stirs big-think philosophizing.

"You're holding something billions of years old in your hand. You're holding the oldest material in the solar system -- the beginning of time as we know it," says Greg.

The thrill of the find hasn't changed, but the market surrounding it has transformed dramatically.

A half-century ago, the leading collector in the country drove around Arizona in a beat-up pickup, with a giant magnet strapped underneath.

Today, private dealers trade hundreds of specimens on eBay and billions-year-old space rocks pull million-dollar prices in heady collecting circles. The lure of loot has set off a modern-day gold rush, with Indiana Jones adventurers scouting far corners of the Earth, aggressive dealers cutting secret deals for specimens, and collectors paying stratospheric prices for crumbs of planetary crusts.

The Hupes -- who say they only occasionally sell meteorites, and only to support their habit -- are in the thick of the collecting fray, ready to act in an eye blink.

Last year, Adam had a flight booked to Illinois 10 minutes after learning a meteorite had crashed through the roof of a police and fire station outside Chicago. He set up shop in front of the station, working out of a rental car trunk, cash in hand. In a TV interview, he told viewers with fresh finds to "bring 'em on in" -- he'd be the one in front of the station in the yellow jacket.

Some 30 other dealers and collectors from around the globe were right behind him. "Competitors saw it on the news. The next day, they all showed up in yellow jackets," says Adams. Prices quickly escalated from $1 to $2 a gram to $20.

Scientists have conflicting opinions about the current "Wild West" scene surrounding meteorites.

It's true, they say, that more hunters, more dealers, more collectors, mean more uncovered meteoritic material. But it's also true that prime specimens are not always available for scientific study, that many lack adequate field documentation, and most are priced beyond reach of cash-strapped academics.

"Unfortunately, because of all the collectors, the cost has gone really high. That's a problem for researchers and museums trying to compete," says Don Brownlee, noted astronomy professor at the UW.

Reputable collectors like the Hupes rely on scientists to verify their samples. In turn, they make a point of donating pieces of rare finds to them. "When a researcher asks us to buy material, we won't charge them, because they are enhancing the value of our collection by studying it," says Adam.

"If they want it for personal reasons, we'll do a trade."

Not everyone takes the high ground. So-called "cowboy" hunters often flaunt collecting laws. "There are some shady people out there. They may say things fell on their property, when it fell on public property ... or they may take things out of countries that have restrictions on collecting," says John Schutt, a geologist and professional mountaineering guide in Bellingham who, for years, has been recovering meteorites in Antarctica for scientific study.

Spotting meteorites on wind-swept, bare blue ice is relatively easy. The Antarctic teams drive back and forth in snowmobiles and look for dark objects.

"They're just everywhere," says Schutt. "We've found upward of 3,000 to 4,000 in relatively restricted areas."

Spotting meteorites around the Puget Sound area is another matter.

Meteorites hide themselves well in a wet green landscape dense with trees and scrub and littered with dark rocks. And they can quickly turn to rust in the rain -- in a geological time frame.

"Western Washington is the worst place to find one," says Tony Irving, lecturer in earth and space sciences at the UW. "Unless this one hit something or came through a roof, it's going to be tough."

Tough, but tantalizing. "Anytime you have a sonic boom like that, the chance of having surviving meteorites is pretty high," says UW astronomer Brownlee, who estimates the June 3 meteor was "bigger than a cow."

The UW represents one of three teams currently tracking the June 3 fall. Scientists there have used seismographs to place the meteor explosion about six miles northeast of Snohomish.

A Portland team is interviewing witnesses and triangulating their accounts of the event, attempting to pinpoint the site.

A team from California is using camera images and interviews to track the trajectory. "It's a little like forensics," says Matson, a principal investigator on the team. "You have to figure out what's real, what's right, what's wrong."

His team has already sent meteorite hunters to an undisclosed site east of Snohomish.

After a week, they came back empty-handed, reporting difficulties with thick vegetation and scanty road access.

The Hupes are eagerly monitoring all three teams' work.

"What we're doing is riding all the teams," says Adam. "We told them, whoever finds the first legitimate piece, we're part of that team."

Behind them, expect an alien horde of hunters, dealers and collectors to descend, hot on their trail.

-------------------------------
ALIEN ROCKS

Unlike ordinary terrestrial rocks, meteorites typically have a dark fusion crust, from their burning plunge into the Earth's atmosphere. Many also have elemental iron, not native to our planet, which quickly rusts in the uncongenially moist climate of the Northwest. About 90 percent of meteorites are attracted to magnets.
to a gram to .

Scientists have conflicting opinions about the current "Wild West" scene surrounding meteorites.

It's true, they say, that more hunters, more dealers, more collectors, mean more uncovered meteoritic material. But it's also true that prime specimens are not always available for scientific study, that many lack adequate field documentation, and most are priced beyond reach of cash-strapped academics.

"Unfortunately, because of all the collectors, the cost has gone really high. That's a problem for researchers and museums trying to compete," says Don Brownlee, noted astronomy professor at the UW.

Reputable collectors like the Hupes rely on scientists to verify their samples. In turn, they make a point of donating pieces of rare finds to them. "When a researcher asks us to buy material, we won't charge them, because they are enhancing the value of our collection by studying it," says Adam.

"If they want it for personal reasons, we'll do a trade."

Not everyone takes the high ground. So-called "cowboy" hunters often flaunt collecting laws. "There are some shady people out there. They may say things fell on their property, when it fell on public property ... or they may take things out of countries that have restrictions on collecting," says John Schutt, a geologist and professional mountaineering guide in Bellingham who, for years, has been recovering meteorites in Antarctica for scientific study.

Spotting meteorites on wind-swept, bare blue ice is relatively easy. The Antarctic teams drive back and forth in snowmobiles and look for dark objects.

"They're just everywhere," says Schutt. "We've found upward of 3,000 to 4,000 in relatively restricted areas."

Spotting meteorites around the Puget Sound area is another matter.

Meteorites hide themselves well in a wet green landscape dense with trees and scrub and littered with dark rocks. And they can quickly turn to rust in the rain -- in a geological time frame.

"Western Washington is the worst place to find one," says Tony Irving, lecturer in earth and space sciences at the UW. "Unless this one hit something or came through a roof, it's going to be tough."

Tough, but tantalizing. "Anytime you have a sonic boom like that, the chance of having surviving meteorites is pretty high," says UW astronomer Brownlee, who estimates the June 3 meteor was "bigger than a cow."

The UW represents one of three teams currently tracking the June 3 fall. Scientists there have used seismographs to place the meteor explosion about six miles northeast of Snohomish.

A Portland team is interviewing witnesses and triangulating their accounts of the event, attempting to pinpoint the site.

A team from California is using camera images and interviews to track the trajectory. "It's a little like forensics," says Matson, a principal investigator on the team. "You have to figure out what's real, what's right, what's wrong."

His team has already sent meteorite hunters to an undisclosed site east of Snohomish.

After a week, they came back empty-handed, reporting difficulties with thick vegetation and scanty road access.

The Hupes are eagerly monitoring all three teams' work.

"What we're doing is riding all the teams," says Adam. "We told them, whoever finds the first legitimate piece, we're part of that team."

Behind them, expect an alien horde of hunters, dealers and collectors to descend, hot on their trail.

-------------------------------
ALIEN ROCKS

Unlike ordinary terrestrial rocks, meteorites typically have a dark fusion crust, from their burning plunge into the Earth's atmosphere. Many also have elemental iron, not native to our planet, which quickly rusts in the uncongenially moist climate of the Northwest. About 90 percent of meteorites are attracted to magnets.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/180904_meteor06.html
 
Was Lowestoft woman hit by a meteorite?

http://100megsfree4.com/farshores/n04hit.htm

Was Lowestoft woman hit by a meteorite?
Aug 17.04


It may have been a Martian attack or simply bad luck, but whatever it was it left a Lowestoft woman with a nasty gash on the arm.

Pauline Aguss, 76, was hanging out her washing last week when she received the mysterious cut.

At first the only explanation was her peg bag but, husband Jack was unconvinced and later found a small brown metallic rock, no bigger than a walnut, in the garden – which had the markings of a meteorite.

On average one meteorite falls every week to earth, and the last significant find in the UK was in 1991 in Peterborough. According to experts, no one has ever been hit by one.

But given the metallic colour and visible crystals on the rock, Neil Bone, director of the meteor division at the British Astronomical Association, said he could not rule out the possibility that the Lowestoft find was genuine.

He said: "It seems East Anglia is the place for meteorites. However, these things are pretty rare and the chances of being struck by one are vanishingly small."

He added that the last record of a meteorite causing injury was when a dog was thought to have been killed in Egypt sometime in the last century.

The unidentified object fell from the sky last Wednesday afternoon and would have been hurtling at a speed of about 20km a second, having travelled millions of miles from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.

Mr and Mrs Aguss, who live in Normanston Drive, have spent the past few days looking on the internet, with help from the rest of the family, in a bid to confirm the origin of the rock.

Mrs Aguss said: "If you get a microscope out you can see lots of crystals on it, but I would like an expert's opinion to get to the bottom of this. I just wondered if it was a little Martian wanting to attack me."

Local astronomical groups are also keen to identify the latest offering from the skies, and Mark Lawrick-Thompson, chairman of the Norfolk Astronomical Society, thought there was a good chance it could be the real thing.

"It is quite rare to find them and the presence of crystals doesn't mean it is definitely a meteorite, but there is good chance that it is one," he said.

However, the possibility that it was connected to the annual perseid meteorite shower, which was at its peak last Thursday, was discounted by Mr Bone who explained that the material from the shower was too small and would burn up in the atmosphere.
 
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