Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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]
"What we've got here is what we call a "Boeing Bomb". See the peanut? Dead giveaway."
"Nuh-uh... thats a 'Space Peanut.'"
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.
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.
Our heavy traveling stuff weighs pounds or tons, and only travels in miles per hour.