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Meteorite Crashes Through New Zealand Roof
freitasm writes "The New Zealand Herald and Stuff are reporting on a 1.3kg, four billion-year-old rock that fell through the roof of a house in suburban Auckland, New Zealand. Their insurance company will pay for the hole in the roof and couch and two holes in the ceiling. The meteorite itself, a chunk of an asteroid, could have been basketball-sized when it impacted Earth's atmosphere at 15km a second. By the time it hit the house, its velocity had probably slowed to 100-200m a second."
Now thats what I call a smashing entry!
Oh, that's right... this is the biggest news in New Zealand since the Lord of the Rings crew packed up and left.
I bet their insurance company cancels them after they pay for all the repairs, too. :) It was preventable, if New Zealand had invested more heavily in SWMDT (Star Wars Meterorite Defense Technology). Of course with the license fees the Reagan administration was charging...
That would truly suck. To be sitting there watching "When Meteorites Attack, True Stories of Meteorites and Their Victims" and WHAM, there's a smoking hole in your television set, sparks flying everywhere, and the father figure of the family is screaming for his teenage son, wondering if he had been busy building nuclear reactors again.
My reality check bounced.
Or another Open Source project gone wrong?
Meteorites are quite pricey, just put it on ebay.
Put the house on ebay too.
Now at first, you'd think having a meteorite crashing through your roof was bad.
:)
On the other hand, does this mean that these people now own the meteorite? and if so, does anyone have any idea how valuable it might be? Just courious
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Maybe they should check the 'meteorite' for peanuts...
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
I know that the Earth's atmosphere is approximately 100 kilometres in thickness, but the idea of an object dissipating so much kinetic energy as heat is still amazing. Nonetheless, at that speed it's going at about the same speed as a bullet from a gun so I guess it's a good thing no one was there. Luckily, though, since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity, it's a good thing it lost all but literally 0.2% of its speed.
What insurance policy covers meteor impacts? If there's anything in the world that might happen that could be called an Act of God, surely 'smiting with flaming rocks from the heavens' qualifies?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It's all lies! That house was area 51! Get your tin foil hats and ten foot thick steel bunkers because aliens have fired the first shot in the intergalatic war of 2004!
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
Yes it would really rock.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
The house owner said that she didn't think anyone would want to buy the rock and wanted it to stay in New Zealand / Auckland anyway. I don't think she knows how much she could get for it.
"What we've got here is what we call a "Boeing Bomb". See the peanut? Dead giveaway."
"Nuh-uh... thats a 'Space Peanut.'"
Anomalous plant growth has been noted in the vicinity of the meteorite strike, with nearly complete coverage of the immediate vicinity with lush, dense foliage. The homeowners could not be reached for comment.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
OK, the two articles contradict a bit in this area, but if the experts don't yet know where it is from (as the NZ news article says), how do they know how old it is?
I'm far from expert in this area, but if they haven't yet done the work to figure out exactly (or even roughly) where it is from, surely they couldn't have done the work to figure out its age... Or are some assumptions being made here?
I am a young earth-creationist and my conspiracy theory says that assumptions are definitely being made. The Stuff article says it is an asteroid-derived meteorite... Asteroids are said to have formed c. 4bya therefore metorite is 4 billion years old. No tests required.
Hmmm....should the insurance company really have to pay, considering the net result of the impact is that the householders will probably be able to sell it for at least $10,000? Admittedly, I have no idea how much the repairs cost, but.... well... it just seems a bit odd to pay out for an event that will actually monetarily improve the policy-holder....
According to the stuff article, the meteorite could be worth $10,000. That would be one expensive conversation piece. I'd sell it if I had an offer like that, without hesitation.
Mod parent up!
they asked the rock. Don't need extensive research to ask something. But I think the rock may be female, in which case it's been 4 billion years old for the past 3 billion years.
Yeah, but I don't think it would go the way you had it.
Doctor: Ewww! What happened to, uh, him?
Constable: He got hit by a meteorite...
Doctor: *choke* Good Lord!
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
In AD 2004, war was beginn...oh, never mind.
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
All we needed to do was send Bruce Willis up there with a team of roughnecks.
that it hat reliable information that Osama bin Laden was in the house at the time.
In a response to the attack on New Zealand, President Bush announced today that United States Army and Marine units would be stationed on Mars and other planets as a deterrent to further terrorism by unknown aliens. He will send a request for a further $900,000,000,000 to congress to fund the development of transport and supply systems for our brave patriotic troops. Haliburtion corp. has patriotically volunteered to undertake the conract for a mere 25% markup.
Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that the aliens have obvious ties with Al Queda. Only alien mind control could have changed the joyous happy reception that should have been give to US liberators by the oppressed Arab world. He will ask Congress to amend the Patriot act to allow preventive detention of the entire population of the United States and 24 hour observation of everyone else.
Affable non-entity and Homeland Security fill-in Tom Ridge announced newer, more vibrant colors for ever more heightened security levels. He is asking Congress to redefine illegal alien to include beings from other planets/solar systems.
First off, you attack the person rather than their statement. This is called an Argumentum ad hominum. It's a logical fallacy and carries no weight. Personally, I think James (parent's parent) raises quite a good point. The loss in energy is quite impressive.
*scribbles on back of envelope*
The heat it deposited in the atmosphere is enough to vaporize more than 200 liters of water previously at room temperature. (In a really really rough calculation). For what's essentially a piece of rock, I thought that's quite cool.
So, to me, the comment was interesting. So, whatever the motives, the comment is a good one and should be rewarded as such
Also, moderators have mod points for a reason: They're good active members of the slashdot community. Don't tell them what to do, let them make up their own mind. That's what they're there for.
I'd find a blacksmith and craft an astral shield+4
One of the things which we fail to do is mock skeptics when they are wrong. The idea of rocks falling from the sky was rejected by all scientists at one time - despite the eye witness testimony of those who had seen it happen. The people who had seen it happen were dismissed as liars, as hoaxers, and as hallucinogenic; they were not gifted great thinkers like all skeptics are known to be.
An example of current skeptical thought: the idea of an elephant startling at the sight of a mouse is 'scientifically' ridiculous. I have never seen an elephant startle at a mouse, however I have seen a full grown African elephant startle and flinch back at the sight of a common gray squirrel. This occurred at the Houston Zoo in the early 1980's. That behavior is not unreasonable if it is viewed from the elephant's perspective; elephants have poor eyesight, and the serpentine movement of a running rodent when seen by an elephant could easily be mistaken for the movement of a poisonous snake - which is one creature that might cause an elephant to startle.
I know for a fact that the idea of an elephant flinching at the sight of a small rodent is a reasonable idea since I have personally seen it happen, and that the skeptics are dead wrong in this respect. Since skeptics never apologize when they are wrong I would like take this opportunity to say to all of the skeptics of the world most formally: "You are of my own personal knowledge completely full of shit".
Skepticism is very important in science; it keeps people from being gullible. Skepticism is healthy scientific behavior up to a point, when it goes beyond that point it is wrong and destructive. An example may clarify what that point is: saying "Your experiment show evidence of 'X' but it could also be explained by 'Y' or 'Z'" is an example of proper skepticism. However to mock someone and in general act like a turd is going beyond the point of healthy skepticism and into a destructive unscientific area.
The original Viking lander experiments on Mars all sent back evidence of life existing on Mars. Healthy skepticism would have been to say: "The results are inconclusive because they could have also been caused by certain rare chemical compounds, further testing to rule out those rare compounds is required". Instead we are told there is "no evidence of life", the people who designed the experiments are ridiculed publicly, and the test data is ignored as 'poor science'. As a result of skepticism gone wild no follow up experiments have been performed, and everyone 'knows' that there is no life on Mars.
Flaming rocks DO fall from the sky, Elephants DO startle at small rodents, the Viking experiments DO need to be followed up, and 'skeptical' scientists who use mockery need to be publicly humiliated by being forced to wear Dunces caps with the words "Rocks don't fall from the sky!" stenciled on them.
There have been an increasing number of strikes over the past couple of years. Some, like this one, a half dozen instances back, are pretty darned significant. (Though, those ones suffer from a near total media black-out policy, while the smaller ones tend to get the typical, "Funny news, one in a billion, what WILL the insurance companies do, har har har! Go back to sleep, citizen" treatment). Those in power, however, are more or less aware and are preparing in their own ways. One theory suggests that the real reason behind the current world-wide military lock-down is not the 'Terrorism' bugaboo, but rather is to secure the population (and planet resources) for when things get really hairy. Look up Alternative '3' to get an idea. (Rather a cartoony distillation of the concept, but close enough to the real deal to be a relatively good primer on How Things Are.)
There appears to be a definite time-scale thingy going on here. Watch and listen. Almost everything of any significance going on in the world today is directly related to the sky falling tomorrow, so to speak. And most of it is reactionary, religion-based stupidity. We wouldn't have troops in Iraq, and Israel wouldn't be on a genocidal free-for-all if it wasn't for the 'Good' book. Ah, religion! Crack of the Masses.
Favorite news-bite of the week:
Though, don't fret. The big rocks aren't due to start whacking us for a little while yet. We'll probably get all the Harry Potter books out before. And thank goodness for that! (sic)
-FL
The last big story from New Zealand was Shrek the Marino sheep that was on the lam for seven years.
Also, let me say that you do not want to be the guy hooking up the hose when one of those valves is bad. You end up having to reach your arm up the hatch of the plane, and manually open the valve, and hope to god you can get yourself out of the way, and the hose in place before the "matter" starts flowing. As you can imagine, it is a pretty difficult thing to do.
If they had checked the newspapers, they would have had time to shop on Yahoo for a boatload of throw pillows and their trailer would have been saved!
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
The rock hit her leather couch and bounced back up to the ceiling before rolling under the computer.
This demonstrates that the Martians have Internet. They have sent a ping
The article says Base Ball size, just wait for that extra-terestrial to come off the field and starts looking for his ball!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Our heavy traveling stuff weighs pounds or tons, and only travels in miles per hour.
I hate it when the media gets scientific terminology wrong. It would be incorrect to say the house was hit by a 'meteorite' (definitions taken from dictionary.com): meteorite n : stony or metallic object that is the remains of a meteoroid that has reached the earth's surface unless it's been shown that it bounced off the surface of the earth prior to punching holes in the house. I believe it would me more accurate to say that it was hit by a 'meteor': meteor n : a meteoroid that has entered the earth's atmosphere [syn: shooting star] Then, after the meteor punched the holes in the roof and couch, and came to rest, it could be accurately described as a meteorite.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
im suprised that term hasnt been attacked yet.
if an insurance company told me something wasnt covered because it was an act of GOD, id kindly request they prove this "GOD" existed from which this meteor was cast down...
heck, i might even sue for slander, for them implying that GOD wanted to kill me.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Somewhere else in the universe an alien species is trying to figure out what happened to their Earth Rover.
can be found here http://www.local6.com/slideshow/news/3413231/detai l.html?qs=1&s=1&dm=ss&p=news including some of the hole caused by the meteorite
If you're referring to the Northwest 727 in Florida in the latter 1980's, the right engine actually separated from the aircraft after the blue ice went through it.
Brings new meaning to 'losing an engine.'
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.