Chicken Little was right!(big meteorite lands in Norway)

[ishmael]

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1346411.ece

[Leon m]

Holy cow ! thats a biggin.

"This is simply exceptional. I cannot imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to compare it to the (atomic) bomb," Røed Ødegaard said.

[huisjen]

Sounds like there was a targeting error though.

Dan

[ishmael]

What, it missed Brooksville?

From what I remember of my geology, most of these bolides break up, explode, in the atmosphere. Mineral v iron content has a lot to do with that. You can bet the Norwegians, and a bunch of other meteorite hunters, will be fascinated by whatever made it to earth.

It does sound like a big one! Norwegians aren't given to hyperbole, and here one is talking about Hiroshima!

It wasn't so long ago, just a few hundred years, that the whole notion of meteorites was scoffed at by the scientific community.

[huisjen]

It missed North Korea.
It missed wherever in Pakistan OBL is hiding (if he didn't die in that quake).
It missed Iran's nuke facilities.
It missed a certain ranch in Texas.

There are lots of places it could have been useful.

Dan

[Leon m]

A few years ago my wife and I were sitting out on the porch enjoying the starry night when this HUGE rock went streeking through the sky.
It had a green tail miles long, and the cool thing was that you could here a sonic like sound as it ripped through the atmosphere.I called the UW astronomy dept. the next day to find out it was a Bolide skipping through the atmosphere.

[JimD]

The astronomer believes the meteorite was a giant rock and probably the largest known to have struck Norway

So they figure it was a rock. I was thinking maybe it was a duck. Or maybe a big round of gouda.

[Phillip Allen]

It missed North Korea.
It missed wherever in Pakistan OBL is hiding (if he didn't die in that quake).
It missed Iran's nuke facilities.
It missed a certain ranch in Texas.

There are lots of places it could have been useful.

Dan

I think we should be glad it missed Korea...it would have caused retaliatory strikes against their enemies...

[Fitz]

Here are the Near Earth Object Close Approach tables.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

They are updated DAILY:eek: .

[ishmael]

I was walking home from a Chinese meal one summer evening in Baltimore. Chatting away with my Jungian analyst, of all things, when a strange UFO crossed the sky.

It was close, maybe a thousand feet off the ground, though such things are deceiving. It looked like a smouldering basketball, round, leaving a small bit of smoke behind it. We both saw it and remarked how odd. Not a meteor, our view of the sky was only a maybe ten degrees, and it was there for more than a second. Meteors travel very fast.

I went so far as to call various authorities when I got home. They said, "Yeah, we've been getting calls, and we don't know what it was."

Very odd. More things in heaven and earth, Horatio.

[LeeG]

1000' off the ground, leaving a bit of smoke behind it. Sounds like a prop in a marionette show.

[ishmael]

It was like that, Lee. If I didn't know better it was like a prop on a Victorian stage

A smouldering ball that moved fairly slowly across the sky. Very odd. No explanation comes easily to mind.

[JimD]

Probably another duck like the one in Norway only this one had been eating burritos.

[Phillip Allen]

At the age of about 14 I hit upon a plan for a prank:

I got about 50 feet of the continuous bag which is cut off in short pieces to cover clothes at a local cleaner. I went to Dad's shop and filled it with natural gas and then hung a wet, rolled up newspaper to the bottom. my plan was to put a firecracker and cigarette time bomb on it to light it off in the sky over town at night...chickened out because of the possibility of getting it into an airplane or it setting a fire somewhere...

[George Jung]

Do you recall the guy who, several years ago, launched his lawnchair with several weather balloons.... controlled his ascent/descent with a bb gun, as I recall. Seems he ascended rapidly to, as I recall, 20,000 feet and was reported by a pilot of a commercial jet. Some fallout when he returned to earth. Unrelated to current thread, but Phillips post prompted the recall. Never know what you're going to see...

[LeeG]

Philip, that was my brothers 9th grade science project. He attached little notes asking for time and location the balloon was found. About 4'x18" diameter. Connected to the stove it took a long time to fill up and a long time to rise into the sky. He sent off about 18. I recall it was chilly and foggy so it must have been winter when there wasn't any dry grass (California).

Then one day we decided to light one. I forgot how many we lit over a few days before we got caught. For some reason we didn't think setting off one at rush hour about the time dad was driving home would be a problem.

[huisjen]

Damn.

All I have is Propane.

Dan

[Bob Cleek]

So did they ever go out and see where it hit? Probably not... it's Norway, after all! LOL