Boy hit by meteorite

1
The German teenager Gerrit Blank (14) was hit by a meteorite on his way to school in Essen, Germany. The recovered object is estimate to be about the size of a peanut. The meteorite grazed the boy's hand before leaving a 30 cm deep crater in the ground.

This is a great story but a lot of details are missing. Can anyone fill in the missing details? When did the event occur? Is the date given anywhere and what was the time? Gerrit Blank is supposed to have been 14 years old, but has anyone seen his birthdata?

From the picture in the Mirror it would appear the meteor hit Gerrit in his left hand.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/most-popular/20 ... -21433781/

The chances of being hit by a meteorite are estimate to be about one in 100 million.
http://www.astronor.com

4
Is the rumor true (regarding the meteorite)?
Image
1. Lord 1 Mars is Angular in the 7th - rumor true.
2. Angles are fixed - rumor true.
3. Moon is angular in the 4th - rumor true.
4. Jupiter, the dispositor of the Moon is angular in the 4th and in a fixed sign of Aquarius - the story is true.
5. If the Moon is separating from a malefic and applying to a benefic that is angular, the tale is true. Moon is separating from square Mercury Lord 8th (in the previous sign), and applying to sextile Venus in Taurus on the cusp of 7th ( Moon and Venus are in mutual reception by exaltation) - Story is true.

5
MikeCoop wrote:The details really do not add up at all!!!
I confess I thought that when meteorites of this size reached the ground, although they may have been travelling at high velocity upon entering the Earth's atmosphere, the friction is so high that the object's speed is reduced to that of a stone thrown swiftly through the air.

Anyhow, if anyone does pick up the details it is interesting. In a week or two Gerrit Blank will probably wake up to find he is endorsed with superhuman powers and then we'll have him flying all over the place! :lol:
http://www.astronor.com

6
I confess I thought that when meteorites of this size reached the ground, although they may have been travelling at high velocity upon entering the Earth's atmosphere, the friction is so high that the object's speed is reduced to that of a stone thrown swiftly through the air.
Yet if we read this story the impact was enough to gouge a large crater in the ground. People who have been documented to have survived actual meteor strikes have generally done so because the object that struck them had previously ricocheted off of something else first. Without that I'm afraid the poor hapless child would have come out of it a lot worse!!
That stuff about seeing a fireball then a loud bang after it's impact is a tad unbelievable too. Meteoric fireballs, explosions and sonic booms tend to happen at altitude. Any debris from such explosions reaching the earth tends to lead to collectible fragments lying on the earth's surface. My personal guess is that the boy in question found or already had a meteorite fragment and made the rest up for some reason.
A fun story nevertheless.
regards mike

7
hi again thought you might like to play "compare and contrast" with a similar story from 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2218755.stm

In that story its a schoolgirl who finds it -

"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.This does not happen very often in Northallerton....Noticing it was "quite hot", she showed it to her father Niel.The family now plan to have the stone analysed by scientists at Durham University.

"I saw it fall from above roof height," Siobhan told BBC News Online. "

Notice the difference this "quite hot"meteorite landed on her foot , but did not make loud banging noises, did not leave a gaping crater and did not pass through her foot!!!

regards
mike c

8
Hi I thought I'd add a couple of sources for "cold meteorites"
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF1/190.html
"A meteor weighing from several pounds to several hundred pounds will, indeed, partially burn up before striking the ground. Entry to the atmosphere may be at speeds as great as 90,000 miles per hour (40 km/see). Roughly half of the meteor will be burned away due to heating as the meteor is slowed down by the air. Depending upon the meteor's initial speed and initial weight, it will reach a terminal speed of about 45 miles per hour. It will reach that low speed roughly 10 miles above the ground... As the meteor falls the last 10 or so miles it cools off. Meteorites picked up immediately after they fell were usually no more than lukewarm. Never has a meteorite of intermediate size been known to start a fire, even when landing in a haystack or in other combustible material"

Or alternatively this source for info on finding meteorites -

http://www.aerolite.org/found-a-meteorite.htm
"Meteors stop ablating (burning) approximately seven miles above our planet's surface, then fall in what is known as "dark flight," according to the normal pull of gravity. It is very cold at an altitude of seven miles, so meteorites cool quickly as they plummet towards the Earth. There has never been a documented case of a burning, or even hot, meteorite landing upon the Earth"

regards
mike c