Boy Hit by Meteor!
June 15th, 2009 at 12:30 pm by T.J. Del Santo under General Talk, Weather and Science
Maybe Chicken Little was right.
I know the chances of this happening are like one in a gazillion, but it’s a fear of mine….being hit by a meteor. My very first post in my Weather and Science Blog talked about an asteroid coming pretty close to Earth back in the winter.
Well…a 14 year old boy in Germany was reportedly hit by a meteorite. Yes. A German boy was reportedly hit by a meteorite and lived!!
Courtesy of the Telegraph: Gerrit Blank survives being hit by the tiny meteor in his hand.
This is the quote from the boy, Gerrit Blank, from the Telegraph:
“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.”
Yikes! He’s just walking to school then a piece of rock comes crashing into the atmosphere at 30,000 miles an hour, breaking the sound barrier, breaks up and hits him in the hand! It’s actually pretty darn neat when you stop and think about it. Can you imagine? I’m not completely convinced all of this is true, but time will tell.
According to Space.com, the last known story of a meteor hitting a person was in 1954…in Alabama.
REPORTS OF 14-YEAR OLD GERMAN BOY’S EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENCOUNTER DON’T ADD UP
The Gerrit Blank Story is All Meteorwrong
By Darryl Pitt
[The author is the Curator of the Macovich Collection of Meteorites in New York City---one of the largest and most famous private collections in the world]
Of the following 2009 storylines, which is false: (a) in Monsters vs. Aliens, Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) is struck by a meteorite and turns into a giant; (b) in X Men Origins: Wolverine, James Howlett (Hugh Jackman) participates in a mission to recover a prized meteorite which contains the strongest element known to man; or (c) on his way to school, 14-year old Gerrit Blank is struck by a red-hot, pea-sized meteorite which was traveling at a speed of 30,00MPH, which left a three inch scar after having caromed off his hand, and was still traveling fast enough to leave a smoldering crater in the street?
Answer: Hollywood screenwriters have nothing on The Gerrit Blank Story. However, as Gerrit’s story was framed as news, herein is a primer on extraterrestrial impacts–particularly for the reporters and editors of the dozens of major papers and science web portals who filed a report about Gerrit Blank’s Day Off.
The headline screamed “Schoolboy Survives Direct Hit By Meteorite Traveling at 30,000 MPH.” Gerrit was widely quoted: “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. When it hit me it knocked me flying and was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road.”
Gerrit was not struck by a projectile traveling 30,000 MPH—faster than a speeding bullet. Only in the vacuum of outer space do meteorites travel a cosmic velocity of tens of thousands of miles an hour—not when they impact Earth’s atmosphere, which is akin to hitting a brick wall (with an expected immediate deceleration). In fact, atmospheric friction is sufficiently immense that meteorites even weighing several tons lose their entire cosmic velocity miles above Earth’s surface—a moment referred to as its “retardation point.” A meteorite will then briefly accelerate until it achieves the terminal velocity of its free-fall to Earth at a speed of only—-depending upon drag coefficients—150-400 MPH.
As for the bright light and sonic boom: it certainly had to have been a very large meteorite to be noticeably luminous in daylight. Where are the other witnesses who surely would have seen and heard this as well? And if the meteorite exploded into tiny fragments in the atmosphere, where are all the other specimens? While meteorites can indeed result in sonic booms, such a sonic phenomena would have occurred before impact. There is, moreover, another time line problem which requires resolving: at approximately 10 miles in altitude, meteorites decelerate to a point where they are no longer luminous. The final stage of a meteorite’s journey to Earth is several minutes of an invisible, dark flight, and typically a meteorite will land a hundred miles or more from where it was last seen in the sky.
The smoldering crater? As a result of cooling during their extended free fall to Earth, tiny meteorites are not even warm to the touch.
In short, could Gerrit Blank have been struck by a meteorite or meteorite fragment? It’s unlikely–even the object depicted does not comport with the typical character of a freshly fallen meteorite. What’s totally unclear is whether a vivid imagination or reckless reporting are responsible for the planetary-sized inconsistencies.
The info by Darryl Pitt seems accurate, but I’m sure this teenager had something happen to him. He may have been hit by debris from the impact…who really knows? The piece of space rock is being studied, and I’m sure we’ll find out more in the coming days.
Late one night, as I was leaving a friends house I saw a bright flash then a sharp report followed by a dull thud. The next morning I heard that a meteor had been spotted by several people, security cameras and the such. I did see the flash before I heard the crack. I figured that although the sonic boom would have happened before it went by me (way up in the air I assume) the noise didn’t get here until after the flash from the burning rock. The dull thud was my body hitting the ground because I thought it was a muzzle flash and bullet from a gun. I have heard sonic booms from meteors 3 times, and all three times it was flash first and boom second.
As far as where are the rest of the fragments, I would think that it would be nearly impossible to find them unless they hit something else. Now, the crater that was suppossedly caused by this meteor, it would be easy to tell if it was caused by compression or natural terrestial occurances.
If meteors slow down to less than terminal velocity when they hit the atmosphere then speed up, how come they streak across the sky at a flatish angle rather than falling straight down?
I understand that a meteorite would certainly cool down on its re-entry, but I would think that it would still retain a lot of its heat.
If the meteorite did hit him and knock him to the ground, the flash could be similiar to a “white light” you see when something hits you hard, but doesn’t knock you out. Especially something unexpected.
A sonic boom is really loud and sharp. If he heard it and saw a flash, yes, there should be LOTS of other people that heard it and some that saw it also.
I doubt his story, but I also have the aforementioned questions in regards to Mister Pitts comments. About 25 years ago, a school boy in the U.S. had a similar story, but it missed him and he found it in the school yard playground. Turned out to be a vivid imagination.
Thank you, Chuck