Schoolboy struck by meteorite

[Thorvald of Lym]

How's this for show-and-tell?
From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

14-year-old hit by 30,000 mph space meteorite
Published: 7:15AM BST 12 Jun 2009

A schoolboy has survived a direct hit by a meteorite after it fell to earth at 30,000mph.

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.

"I am really keen on science and my teachers discovered that the fragment is really magnetic," said Gerrit.

Chemical tests on the rock have proved it had fallen from space.

Ansgar Kortem, director of Germany's Walter Hohmann Observatory, said: "It's a real meteorite, therefore it is very valuable to collectors and scientists.

"Most don't actually make it to ground level because they evaporate in the atmosphere. Of those that do get through, about six out of every seven of them land in water," he added.

The only other known example of a human being surviving a meteor strike happened in Alabama, USA, in November 1954 when a grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a house, bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.

 

[LucyDuke]

I don't buy it, it doesn't add up.

 

[Aegis]

I don't buy it, it doesn't add up.

It is the Telegraph, after all.

 

[bigdog5994]

how so lucy?

 

[Aegis]

how so lucy?

If it was travelling 30,000 MPH, the wind displacement would have torn his arm and leg off. If it hit his hand, he wouldn't have a hand anymore.

 

[bigdog5994]

If it was travelling 30,000 MPH, the wind displacement would have torn his arm and leg off. If it hit his hand, he wouldn't have a hand anymore.

yea it just dawned on me that 30,000 mph is crazy fast

 

[kulade]

It bounced off his hand and then made a foot wide crater?

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[bhsup]

Pics or it didn't happen.

Sure, use that now, but try saying that about evolution!

 

[aelf]

I think that's just ball lightning. Getting hit by a meteorite would've vapourised him. But then they claim to have found the piece, so maybe this is all just BS. I mean the thing created a crater on the ground but only grazed him slightly, really?

EDIT: Damn, too slow.

 

[Babbler]

I would rather believe a Brit boy would lie, than that stones have fallen from the heavens and knocked him on the head.

 

[cardgame]

Sure, use that now, but try saying that about evolution!

Fossil record, for all intents and purposes here, = pics.

Anyway I agree that this is false, there's no way it actually hit him. Maybe there was a microscopic fragment that split off and that's what caused the scar, but the actual whole thing didn't hit him... or there'd be a hole in his hand or he would't have a hand. (or arm)\

I wonder if any scientists/mathematicians (sp) have done the math to figure out why he wasn't ripped apart by the wind/sheer force of anything hitting you at 30k mph?

 

[bigdog5994]

It bounced off his hand and then made a foot wide crater?

Pics or it didn't happen.

well it could have grazed instead but i think that Aegis has a point about the wind displacement of a pea sized object moving at 30,000 mph thats like 40 times the speed of sound for Christ sake that would cut you in half

 

[kulade]

Maybe his parents/sibling beat him and told him they'd do it again unless he made up a story to tell people who asked about the scars.

 

[cardgame]

Maybe his parents/sibling beat him and told him they'd do it again unless he made up a story to tell people who asked about the scars.

What about the crater in the road?

 

[bigdog5994]

What about the crater in the road?

you got a picture?

 

[cubsfan6506]

Who the hell decided it was moving at 30,000 mph. Did he wip out his scientific radar gun to measure it.

 

[dark_sheep]

I wonder what kind of superpower he'll gain from this experience?

 

[cubsfan6506]

Just another thing to put the 30,000 Number into question, if it was truly moving at that rate 1/100 of a second before it hit him it would been 452.66 feet away. Meaning that no way in hell he could of seen it.

 

[Catharsis]

I would rather believe a Brit boy would lie, than that stones have fallen from the heavens and knocked him on the head.

I too would rather believe this. But since this boy was in Germany, has a German name and sent the meteorite to a German observatory, the chances of a lying little Brit boy being involved in this whole affair are, to my mind, even lower than those of being smacked upside the head by space-detritus.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

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."

If you're hit by a meteorite travelling at 30.000 mph you do not fist feel pain in your hand and a split second after that a bang. You hear a bang, you're flying through the air, you're shell shocked and then you feel pain.

If there was indeed a meteorite, he must have hurt his hand falling.

edit: Lightning once struck a metal wire a few feet above me while I was riding a bike. I fell down, got up, ears ringing, looking around dazed and confused. Neighbours were running at me shouting things and looking quite scared, no idea what they were shouting. But when I looked down I was dripping blood because when I fell I scraped my elbow on the road. Only then did I feel the pain.

I think the boy or the paper spiced up his story a bit.