Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Teen Hit by 30,000 MPH Meteorite, Survives?

  • 12-06-2009 6:00pm
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,070 ✭✭✭✭


    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5511619/14-year-old-hit-by-30000-mph-space-meteorite.html
    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.

    How the hell did something that left a foot wide crater in concrete not do more damage to the kid?
    Tagged:


«1

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,750 ✭✭✭liah


    At least it wasn't a toilet seat.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    According to scientists, the highly magnetic rock—the size of a pea—came from outer space. It was probably a lot bigger when it entered the atmosphere, but this was the bit that survived the burning process. It hit him on his hand, leaving a 3-inch scar. If the hot meteorite had hit him on his head or torso, he would be dead now.
    Magneto II is born.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,391 ✭✭✭Captain-America


    Gerrit Blank?


    He's hardly from Earth.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,431 ✭✭✭✭Saibh




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,736 ✭✭✭tech77


    "Nasty three-inch long scar on his hand" my ar$e.

    He has possibly the coolest scar story ever.
    Chicks will absolutely dig him.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,824 ✭✭✭ShooterSF


    Wait 70% of Earth is water. Yet a massive 6 out 7 that land, land in water. That's 85% No, no, none of this makes sense. No one defeats the laws of averages!


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    liah wrote: »
    At least it wasn't a toilet seat.

    I tip my hat to you, good woman.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,070 ✭✭✭✭My name is URL


    ShooterSF wrote: »
    Wait 70% of Earth is water. Yet a massive 6 out 7 that land, land in water. That's 85% No, no, none of this makes sense. No one defeats the laws of averages!

    Chances are a billion to one according to this article...

    ...about it happening to someone else!


  • Posts: 3,518 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    pea sized
    Yet it bounces off his hand (loosing a heap of momentum) then makes a foot wide hole in the ground? I know it was going 30,000 mph but that would have been reduced alot on contact with his hand.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,944 ✭✭✭✭4zn76tysfajdxp


    liah wrote: »
    At least it wasn't a toilet seat.

    I don't know, I'd say he needed one afterwards.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,770 ✭✭✭Bottle_of_Smoke


    Yet it bounces off his hand (loosing a heap of momentum) then makes a foot wide hole in the ground? I know it was going 30,000 mph but that would have been reduced alot on contact with his hand.

    it was only the size of a pea so went straight through, the ground has a different kind of impact due to the materials in the soil/rock being completely different to the make up of a human hand


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 38,247 ✭✭✭✭Guy:Incognito


    Yet it bounces off his hand (loosing a heap of momentum) then makes a foot wide hole in the ground? I know it was going 30,000 mph but that would have been reduced alot on contact with his hand.

    I'm willing to go out on a limb and say "bounced off" = "skimmed against on the way down"




    BTW, why did they go to the bother of taking and publishing a pic of the kid and not show the scar?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 28,128 ✭✭✭✭Mossy Monk


    liah wrote: »
    At least it wasn't a toilet seat.

    I'd like to see Dead Like Me again. Any tv channels showing it?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 359 ✭✭jigglywoo


    He wasnt meant to be on that Air France flight by any chance, was he?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,572 ✭✭✭✭brummytom


    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.


    What a way to be woken up


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,238 ✭✭✭humbert


    It sure as hell didn't bounce off his hand.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,604 ✭✭✭xOxSinéadxOx


    I read this as 'tesco hit...'

    but how could it only leave him with a 3inch scar even though it made a one foot hole in the ground?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 805 ✭✭✭Mmcd


    Lol skys image is pretty misleading with the plaster on his other hand

    http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2009/Jun/Week2/15302347.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16,793 ✭✭✭✭Hagar


    Meteor boy saved by O2 Layer.
    All he could say was "G-G-Gosh"*
    Eircom spokesman says it was an act of God and that the boy should "Pray as he goes".


    *3G



    I'm off before the lynch mob arrives...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 383 ✭✭PinkTulips


    ShooterSF wrote: »
    Wait 70% of Earth is water. Yet a massive 6 out 7 that land, land in water. That's 85% No, no, none of this makes sense. No one defeats the laws of averages!

    maybe they're including ones that land in rivers, streams and garden ponds in that? :rolleyes: who knows, who cares?

    definitely the best chat up line ever though 'wanna see the scar a meteorite left in my arm?'... people would pay for that leval of coolness :D


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,855 ✭✭✭✭machiavellianme


    Stekelly wrote: »
    I'm willing to go out on a limb and say "bounced off" = "skimmed against on the way down"




    BTW, why did they go to the bother of taking and publishing a pic of the kid and not show the scar?

    Pun-tastic.
    Also, wheres the pictures of this so called crater?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,296 ✭✭✭RandolphEsq


    Gerrit Blank?


    He's hardly from Earth.

    He WAS the thing that fell from space

    /gets pitchfork


    dey took our jobs!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,456 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    That's a guy? Get Senna in here quick!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,070 ✭✭✭✭My name is URL


    Confab wrote: »
    That's a guy? Get Senna in here quick!

    lol, that's what I thought, he looks like a middle-aged lesbian garden show presenter


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,094 ✭✭✭✭javaboy


    I've been told off for my excessive Simpsons quoting lately so I'm saying absolutely nothing about a chihuahua's heads.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭sub-x


    Thats amazing that he wasn't killed,though I bet he was a little spaced.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,391 ✭✭✭Captain-America


    javaboy wrote: »
    I've been told off for my excessive Simpsons quoting lately so I'm saying absolutely nothing about a chihuahua's heads.

    Ah! It's a monster! Kill it! Kill it!

    It's not a monster, it's Mr. Burns!

    Aww, it's Mr Burns. Kill it! Kill it!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 16,165 ✭✭✭✭brianthebard


    I read this as 'tesco hit...'

    but how could it only leave him with a 3inch scar even though it made a one foot hole in the ground?

    If you measure your hand you'll probably see its only about 3 inches across. Can't leave a foot long scar on something that's only 3 inches.



    (awaits penis joke-its in there somewhere)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 827 ✭✭✭VinnyTGM


    Surely it would have done more damage to the lad if it was travelling at near to 40 times the speed of sound.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    yeah something doesnt add up does it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,472 ✭✭✭✭Blazer


    telling a load of lies i reckon..travelling at 30,000 even the tiny piece would be red hot..and at that speed it would rip right through his hand..be more than a fcuking band aid on it then..

    prob saw it land and say "sweet..let's ring Sky/Sun and told a whole load of unbelievable lies and see if they print it..."


    be interesting to see if Sky print my comments...very doubtfull though :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,070 ✭✭✭✭My name is URL


    telling a load of lies i reckon..travelling at 30,000 even the tiny piece would be red hot..and at that speed it would rip right through his hand..be more than a fcuking band aid on it then..

    prob saw it land and say "sweet..let's ring Sky/Sun and told a whole load of unbelievable lies and see if they print it..."

    Well he says "a split second after it hit" (his hand), he heard a loud bang. There's not a chance in hell he would have been able to notice any split second if it was traveling so fast

    I'd say a piece of shrapnel hit his hand after the meteorite hit the ground


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,472 ✭✭✭✭Blazer


    Well he says "a split second after it hit" (his hand), he heard a loud bang. There's not a chance in hell he would have been able to notice any split second if it was traveling so fast

    I'd say a piece of shrapnel hit his hand after the meteorite hit the ground

    never thought of that..good thinkign dude...I'm very sick so a bit slow this week ;)

    he's still a tool though :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,219 ✭✭✭PK2008


    It bounced off his arm yet made a crater in the ground??

    Thats some amount of fapping!!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 865 ✭✭✭Purple Gorilla


    Mossy Monk wrote: »
    I'd like to see Dead Like Me again. Any tv channels showing it?
    Twas cancelled but they released a Direct-to-DVD movie in like April. I watched it last week and it was immensely good
    telling a load of lies i reckon..travelling at 30,000 even the tiny piece would be red hot..
    Could be his **** hand. It would be used to extreme heat/friction


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,182 ✭✭✭nyarlothothep


    Wow, hit by meteorite, that must rock.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,930 ✭✭✭✭challengemaster


    VinnyTGM wrote: »
    Surely it would have done more damage to the lad if it was travelling at near to 40 times the speed of sound.

    Or, 1/22,369 the speed of light depending what way you look at it.

    Or, something with approx. 179,860 Joules of kinetic energy


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,476 ✭✭✭Riddle101


    I call bulls*it on the part where it says all he got was a huge scar. The thing left a crater in the earth, and all the boy gets is a scar. I bet the boy wasn't even near the meteorite when it hit the earth and he just decided to stick his hand on in the crater to pick something up but burned it. If you ask me, they're just trying to make the story more juicy by making it sound as if the boy was an inch from death, anyway I don't care I just wonder if there are any more meteorites about the hit the earth:(


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,410 ✭✭✭twinytwo


    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5511619/14-year-old-hit-by-30000-mph-space-meteorite.html



    How the hell did something that left a foot wide crater in concrete not do more damage to the kid?

    someone is not up on their physics... and it did hit him in the hand... would depend on the mass of the object... i mean what does more damage a 2 ton truck going at 100mph or a .5 gram bullet at the same speed


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,576 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    I'd imagine only a fraction of that energy would have transfered into the hand, much like an armour piercing shell being fired at a paper target.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,046 ✭✭✭enniscorthy


    Overheal wrote: »
    Magneto II is born.



    DEFO


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,090 ✭✭✭jill_valentine


    Well he says "a split second after it hit" (his hand), he heard a loud bang. There's not a chance in hell he would have been able to notice any split second if it was traveling so fast

    I've been on the receiving end of gunfire. You can hear the bullet land behind you well before you hear the sound of the gunshot itself.

    It's weird.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27,252 ✭✭✭✭stovelid


    Moral: excessive masturbation provides an invaluable, protective callus shield on your hands.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,983 ✭✭✭Tea_Bag


    1/22,369 the speed of light depending what way you look at it.

    thats assuming the speed of light is constant, which it isnt, because, (unbeknown to secondary school science teachers seemingly) it changes according to the medium its going through, much like every other speed measurable. scientists managed to reduce the speed of light to 50mph, shooting it through sodium...
    179,860 Joules of kinetic energy

    Im assuming your calculations are right, because im lazy and tired.

    Edit: you're way off according to my calculations. im assuming the "pea sized" meteorite didnt way more than 2 grams, and with E=0.5mv^2, i get 2.304x10^12 J (joules)

    according to WolframAlpha, 2.304x10^12 J of energy is roughly equal to
    ( 0.091) x world nuclear electricity energy production (~~ 25 TJ )
    or roughly 1/11th of the energy produced by nuclear reactors from the ENTIRE world!:eek:
    tech77 wrote: »
    "Nasty three-inch long scar on his hand" my ar$e

    More like took off his entire arm while hitting his fingernail on his pinky finger...
    tech77 wrote: »
    He has possibly the coolest scar story ever.
    Chicks will absolutely dig him.

    Unless he walks around with a print-out of that fabricated story on the internet, who the hell would believe him that it was something from outer space that gave him the scar *cough* dissability fund for the missing arm..


    (disclaimer: sorry for the science stuff, but this is scientific so its not like im taking it way out of proportions..)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,494 ✭✭✭citizen_p


    How the hell did something that left a foot wide crater in concrete not do more damage to the kid?
    i was thinking the same.....

    and how the hell did it "bounce" off his hand.... it shouldve gone straight thru


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,082 ✭✭✭Pygmalion


    Read this story earlier and site says it grazed his hand on it's way down.
    I'm assuming it's been quickly distorted to a direct hit and bouncing off.

    I'm off to bed now, when some other news site reports that it's ripped through his leg post a link here, could use a laugh.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 163 ✭✭CAPSLOCK365


    Starship never warned us about that bit.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 253 ✭✭jaybee747


    They managed to take a picture of the lad but not of the scar nor the "crater", surely it wouldve been better to take a picture of the crater/scar and not the mopatop?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,930 ✭✭✭✭challengemaster


    Tea_Bag wrote: »
    Im assuming your calculations are right, because im lazy and tired.

    Edit: you're way off according to my calculations. im assuming the "pea sized" meteorite didnt way more than 2 grams, and with E=0.5mv^2, i get 2.304x10^12 J (joules)

    according to WolframAlpha, 2.304x10^12 J of energy is roughly equal to or roughly 1/11th of the energy produced by nuclear reactors from the ENTIRE world!:eek:
    Really?
    That's nice, but by working backwards from your calculations, you have v=48,000,000 m/s...I set m=0.002kg also...

    How the shít did you manage that one, from 30,000mph which is 13,411.2 m/s

    You sure you changed everything to SI units?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,983 ✭✭✭Tea_Bag


    v=48,000,000 m/s...
    Well there's your my problem (mythbusters no?)
    13,411.2 m/s
    you are correct good sir
    I set m=0.002kg also...
    Ha ha interesting.

    once again, appologies..;)


  • Advertisement
Advertisement