Meteorite Hits Girl

redcliffe writes "The BBC has a story about a 14 year old North Yorkshire girl who was hit, on the foot, by a meteorite. Where's Bruce Willis when you need him?" The young Miss Carlton notes: "This does not happen that often in Northallerton"; no doubt the City of York is where most meteorites land.

Comments

Re:hmm

[LMCBoy]

It's possible this isn't a meteorite. It would have hurt (but probably not much more than having the same rock thrown at you); since the article didn't mention it, I assume she was undamaged by the impact. Perhaps it hit her after a bounce.

Anyway, the thing that caught me was that she said it was hot to the touch. Small meteorites tend to be cold by the time they hit the ground. They are mostly iron, so they conduct heat well, and cool off fast in the upper atmosphere.

And she said it looked "rusty". Meteorites are black; they can't oxidize in space.
It will be interesting to see if there's a follow-up on this.

BTW, here is a picture of a car in NY that was hit by a 12.5-kg meteorite in 1995. Ouch!

Re:Not the first time . . .

[LMCBoy]

I find it kinda cool that nobody (*in recorded history*) has ever been killed by a meteorite.

I always thought that too, but while googling for a picture of the Peekskill Meteorite car, I stumbled on this page, which shows at least three separate incidents where a person was killed by a meteorite. None have happened recently, though.