Record Meteorite Hits Norway

equex256 writes "Early Wednesday morning, a meteorite streaked across the sky in northern Norway, near Finland and Russia. A witness (Article in Norwegian) went up the mountain to where it hit and reported seeing large boulders that had fallen out of the mountainside, along with many broken trees. Norwegian astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told Aftenposten, Norway's largest newspaper, that he would compare the explosive force of the impact with the Hiroshima bomb. This meteorite is suspected to be much larger than the 90-kilo (198-pound) meteorite which hit Alta in 1904, previously recognized as the largest to hit Norway. From the article: 'Røed Ødegaard said the meteorite was visible to an area of several hundred kilometers despite the brightness of the midnight sunlit summer sky. The meteorite hit a mountainside in Reisadalen in North Troms.'"

Comments

Lucifer's tack hammer.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

(See Niven and Pournelle for consequences of a larger one.)

Re:Lucifer's tack hammer.

[FudRucker]

loved those books, Niven & Pournelle rock! Lucifer's Hammer & FootFall come to mind...

Re:Lucifer's tack hammer.

[Anonymous Coward]

The book by Niven and Pournelle isn't my favourite story about the threat of asteroids. Michael Flynn's future history beginning with Firestar has an entrepreuner give all she can into private space endeavours out of a fear of The Big One coming. Too bad our current space entrepreneurs are motivated mainly by profit, some fear might do some good.

Re:Lucifer's tack hammer.

[qzulla]

Then you should read The Legacy of Herot. They have a Beowolf cluster of Beowolfs. Which would make it Beowolves, right?

Good reading.

qz

Re:Lucifer's tack hammer.

[Agripa]

Would not that be a Beowulf cluster of Grendels? In the sequel you get to find out what eats Grendels.

I forget which but one of the role playing games we had listed Lucifer's Hammer in the bibliography for further reading concerning the destruction of civilization and cannibalism. Unlike the various poorly done movies, I always enjoyed Lucifer's Hammer just for realizing one third of the way through that the impact has already happened and most of the story remains. Save the lightning.

Re:Lucifer's tack hammer.

[Anonymous Coward]

I Demand Tø Be Mødded As Trøll !!!

---
sincirely yøurs,
    dyslexical anønymøus cøward.

Re:Lucifer's tack hammer.

[SEWilco]

At least the Grammar Police are here, "dyslexic".

Re:Lucifer's tack hammer.

[qzulla]

Yer right. I am caught.

qz

Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

Do meteørites sound different with a slash through the middle?

Re:Giant Røck

[m0ns00n]

Hehe, I'm norwegian, but to mee, that sounds really funny!!! =) In norwegian it's "meteoritt" :-) Bøtt ank ju, veldig gudd! :-)

Re:Giant Røck

[LocoMan]

Are you sure that was a meteoritt and not some frozen kenyan pee ?... :)

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea it does. It sonds like metørites rather than meteorites.

Stupid jokes that falls flat aside, the "ø" sounds somewhat like the "e" in "learn" But that's ratter off too. If you're familiar with the german "ö" you're geting close.

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

So what does "Bøtt ank ju, veldig gudd" mean then (in English)?

Re:Giant Røck

[49152]

Actually, I think it sounds more like the u in but.

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

The "u" in "but" is what I tend to use when someone asks about the "ø." For some reason "learn" was the only thing that popped into my head today.

You are of course quite right.

Re:Giant Røck

[wildsurf]

A Meteør once bit my sister... Mind you, Meteør bites Kan be pretty nasti.

Re:Giant Røck

[EvanED]

So if I have, say, one day in Oslo, where should I go?

What about two non-contiguous days?

(Just FYI I'll be flying into Oslo in a week, spending about 12 hours there, then leaving. I might be dead then after a 7 hour bus ride to NYC, a 7 hour flight NYC to Stockholm, and an hour flight Stockholm to Oslo, so I don't know what I'd do then. But the ride back I'll be getting in a Sat morning and staying over until Sun morn, and that's after only like 3 or 4 hours travel, so I might be able to do something.)

Re:Giant Røck

[zxSpectrum]

New York times has a bit about Oslo on a budget.

Re:Giant Røck

[Arker]

Just start by saying 'oo.' Freeze your mouth in that position. Now, keeping your mouth in that position, try to say 'ee' instead.

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

"Frognerparken" also known as "Vigelandsparken"
http://finn.no/finn/map?utmx=260163&utmy=6650869&s earchLevel=&mapTitle=Frognerparken,+OSLO,+Park

"The Munch Museum"
http://www.munch.museum.no/
http://finn.no/finn/map?street=T%F8yengata+53&rout ePointId=r_to&routePointId=&no=&zipcode=&knr=&gnr= &bnr=

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

A shit, just spent 15mins typing something up and lost it because i didn't get /.'s anonyous coward posting system. Short redo:

Get the airport express train (30$ at current exchange rate each way, but youll get used to it in Norway) from the airport, takes about 15min to the city centre (Oslo S). Every other train continues past the central station to Asker, With the Asker trains you can get of at both Oslo S and the "Nationalteateret" Station. Each station is roughly at oposite ends of the main street Karl Johan. You'll find parliment and the royal residence at Karl Johan as well as lot of hops. If the weather is good, head over to Aker Brygge (turn 70-80deg at parliment facing the royal residence and continue towards the sea) nice place for a beer at the seaside, beware of prices.

Maps of the area are good both at Google Maps/Earth and http://finn.no/kart

Big Beware:
When returning to the airport, scedule plenty of time for security checks which can run upwards to 1:15-30huors if peak periods. (buissness innbound/outbound travel 07:00-09:00 and 15:30-17:30 ), but it seems the security check lines are more of a lottery. Have gone straight throug in 5min and waitetd 45mins.

Re:Giant Røck

[SamSim]

The people responsible for the parent post have been sacked.

Re:Giant Røck

[Man Eating Duck]

I'm Norwegian.

The vowel ø in Norwegian is pronounced like the vowel sound in "sun".

Have føn :)

BTW, the astronomer mentioned (Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard, try it :) is something of an astronomer celebrity here. The press will always go to him when there are spectacular events, like this, or eclipses. He's done a great job to make astronomy accessible and fun to less technically inclined people, both by giving public lectures on fascinating subjects, and by writing a couple of books on "popularized astronomy".

Cheers

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but norwegians speaking english pronounce "sun" like "suen", as if the u had a german umlaut over it...

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure he's not just famous for being named after a testicle?

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what terrible advice... come to Oslo, see Aker Brygge (Aker Pier), the in-place for yuppies? Exorbitantly priced beer and wannabe-yanks plus other assholes as far the eye can see. And small, ridiculous shopping malls. I can't imagine anybody visiting Oslo for a day or two would want to venture down into that slum. Not even a yank.

Visit Vigelandsparken like the other poster said. Bring some acid and Vigelandsparken will blow your mind. It's a really far out sculpture park with some weird fertility symbolism going on.

By the way, don't tell anyone that you're a yank (if that's what the original poster is)... unless they're wearing suit and tie of course, then you're pretty safe. We like Canadians, and most yanks who visit claims to be Canadian. That works out well for everyone involved.

Og til dere Nordmenn, pass på barna deres, husk at janker dreper.

Re:Giant Røck

[Arker]

The vowel ø in Norwegian is pronounced like the vowel sound in "sun".The vowel ø in Norwegian is pronounced like the vowel sound in "sun".

Only when 'sun' is pronounced with a heavy Norwegian accent. ;)

Re:Giant Røck

[Anonymous Coward]

It's closer to the vowel sound in 'bird'.

Re:Giant Røck

[Man Eating Duck]

While I speak English with a quite heavy Norwegian accent, I actually tried this with my English father-in-law who's learning Norwegian. It worked nice :)
He's from Wakefield, West Yorkshire. I don't know if his dialect affected it in any way.

On a side note, my (bad) accent is frustrating at times. English and Americans I speak with find it funny that my English is close to perfect grammatically, my vocabulary is very good, while I sound like an immigrant on his second month in the US (or the Swedish chef :)

Vell, I joost cerry oon unyvey

Re:Giant Røck

[a-moll]

you know that the ø is pronounced like the vowel in the words: her, fur, sir, just, cut, ehh.

Re:Giant Røck

[Arker]

It might have. Although I've been to England I can't say I've spent enough time there to be able to pick out the different local accents of the island. I do know that York was once a Viking kingdom, and that part of the country is supposed to have distinctive dialects showing Nordic influence to this day, so it wouldn't be surprising to find out they preserve that vowel there.

I won't claim to speak Norwegian, but I've had significant exposure to it and can often understand it. I speak Swedish fairly well, and so can obviously be much more confident of my judgement there, but I've also spent many hours listening to Norwegian (and Danish) lecturers speak - working in Nordic Linguistics that comes with the territory. At any rate, the Swedish vowel ö is what I was describing - for an English speaker 'hold your mouth for 'oo' then say 'ee' instead' is the best description. That ö is an open-mid front rounded vowel (IPA "oe" as a ligature, which for some reason slashdot won't actually let me print here) and all my books, as well as my rememberances from listening to Norwegians, say that the Norwegian and Danish "ø" is the same vowel. It doesn't exist in any dialect of English I know, but like I said, if there is an English dialect with that sound Yorkshire is exactly where I would expect to find it.

I can definitely sympathise with your frustration - I found the same thing, I learned to read and write Swedish very easily, but actually learning to make it come out of my mouth (or to understand a native speaker who doesn't slow down and speak very carefully for me) was much more challenging. English has a number of difficult and unusual features phonologically, and it takes time (and lots of exposure) to pick them up. Our 'th' sounds for instance, and our tendency to level unstressed vowels into schwas (but you have to remember what they were, because you add an affix to the word and the stress changes!) I know cause a lot of difficulty for second-language learners.

Re:Giant Røck

[vuo]

No, but mørøns do.

But on the topic, that's nowhere near Rüssiä.

Re:Giant Røck

[tedgyz]

The people responsible for sacking the people responsible for the parent post have also been sacked.

LLAMA!

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wish it had fallen on my 14 acres... I'd be buyin' a new car!

Re:Hmmm...

[__aaclcg7560]

Most insurance policies don't cover "acts of God" or even "natural disasters" of this type. The tabloids probably wouldn't pay enough even if you mentioned Michael Jackson's love child was found there. Or were you expecting to mined what was left of the slag?

Re:Hmmm...

[LaminatorX]

Actually, I saw a paper presented back in the late 90's that fairly convincingly made the case for a mostly iron meteor. The author's contention was that the object slowed due to air resistance, it would heat up. As is heated, the metal would have softenned. As it softenned, the metal would start to pancake like a dum-dum bullet. As it pancakes, its air resistance increases, causing it to slow down even more and heat up even faster, causing it to pancake even more... until you get an airbirst at an altitude with on the order of magnitude suggested by the tree angles at Tunguska. If you acept his hypothesis about the meteor's composition, there were no major contradictions in the evidence.

Re:Hmmm...

[Dare nMc]

> The tabloids probably wouldn't pay enough
maybe the tabloids wouldn't, but meteroites are worth more per pound than gold.
if you could recover a couple pounds of those 98 pounds you'll be buying any car you wanted.

Re:Hmmm...

[MichaelSmith]

As is heated, the metal would have softenned. As it softenned, the metal would start to pancake like a dum-dum bullet. As it pancakes, its air resistance increases, causing it to slow down even more and heat up even faster, causing it to pancake even more.

I just can't see it working that way. The outer layers of the meteorite would turn to liquid and gas and carry off the heat generated by friction. Thermal conductivity is just too slow to heat up the core of a large body to the point where it will melt in (at most) a couple of seconds.

A better theory about Tunguska is that it was a loosely bound object like a "snowball" comet fragmennt or a "rubble pile" asteroid. Once it started to break up its surface area increased enormously and then it soaked up a lot of heat quickly and exploded.

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this result in a dumb-dumb wound which even if just grazes the target, is fatal two days later?

Re:Hmmm...

[LaminatorX]

For the given model of the object, it works, but if you make other assumptions about it's composition, it doesn't. As you say, much depends upon just out of what the thing is made.

Re:Hmmm...

[Tablizer]

made the case for a mostly iron meteor. The author's contention was that the object slowed due to air resistance, it would heat up. As is heated, the metal would have softenned. As it softenned, the metal would start to pancake like a dum-dum bullet. As it pancakes, its air resistance increases, causing it to slow down even more and heat up even faster, causing it to pancake even more.

Metal? Pancake? You sir have just described a flying saucer. So much for ending the Tungusta conspiracy theories :-)

Obligatory Meteor Video

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah its probably fake, but cool nonetheless:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4653448813 733199771&q=meteor

And for all you language nazis out there, meteorite is a silly word and should be abolished.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[EGSonikku]

Yup, fake, from a truck commercial (from Toyora I think?) meant to show how tough thier trucks are ;-)

Whoever uploaded that video just cut out the last few seconds where it flashes the manufacturers name.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Nutria]

Yup, fake, from a truck commercial (from Toyora I think?) meant to show how tough thier trucks are ;-)

Meteors don't trail a huge billowing cloud of smoke behind them.

How could anyone not think it's a fake?

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[sharkey]

Well, they DID show this in America. It is at LEAST as believeable as someone hijacking a plane with nothing but an eyelash curler.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Nutria]

It is at LEAST as believeable as someone hijacking a plane with nothing but an eyelash curler.

I want documentation of that before even beginning to believe that.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[MustardMan]

PROBABLY a fake?!?

It hits a fucking truck and the yahoos inside drive out hootin' and hollerin' like a buncha texas cowboys, the truck unscathed.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[ACDChook]

And for all you language nazis out there, meteorite is a silly word and should be abolished.

I think you'll find that by definition, an object is a meteor while it falls through the atmosphere, and the rock that hits the ground is a meteorite. If it burns up in the atmosphere, then there is no meteorite, just a short-lived meteor.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Firehed]

Fake? It's proof that God will strike down people who sing tunes that atrociously. :)

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[darthgnu]

Just ask McGuyver (tm)

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Anonymous Coward]

And for all you language nazis out there, meteorite is a silly word and should be abolished.

In the context it was used, yes it's wrong.

An Asteroid is a rock in space.
A Meteor is the same rock travelling through an atmosphere.
A Meteorite is that same rock that has hit and remains in or on the surface of a larger body.

So what did the hitting of Norway was a meteor, and what remains (apart from a frigging big hole) is a meteorite.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[morcego]

Actually, you are right:

Metoroid -> Atmosphere -> Meteor -> Ground -> Meteorite

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[8ball629]

I thought this was common knowledge.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[eggzeck]

That is from a commercial.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Slur]

It was, until Pat Benatar got everyone confused with her song "All Fired Up."

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Crizp]

McGuyver(tm) - The anime mecha version of MacGyver!

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Anonymous Coward]

And for all you language nazis out there, meteorite is a silly word and should be abolished.

So it's actually a Meteowrong?

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Anonymous Coward]

"I thought this was common knowledge."

Rule one on Slashdot: there is no common knowledge on Slashdot.

Corollary: Rule one is not common knowledge on Slashdot.

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[peanutious]

Of course we all know where meteors really come from. :)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-507738731 8290523344

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[smchris]

And for all you language nazis out there, meteorite is a silly word and should be abolished.

On aesthetic grounds, I disagree. Most meteors are just faint, fast-moving streaks of white light. I've seen a meteorite large enough for the local university to retrieve come down, and the news to report, and it was burning green (presumably copper?), gave the impression within that residue of resolvable size and was quite slower than most meteors -- like a missile.

Quite cool. The heartbreaking thing was that I was in dawn rush-hour traffic and could only take glances!
     

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[HorsePunchKid]

I always used to get these confused, but suddenly it's obvious how to keep them straight. The "-ite" ending on "meteorite" is the same ending used for so many other earthly minerals (hematite, stalactite, anthracite, etc.). So a meteorite is the (earthly) rock you get once the meteor has fallen. And it only took me 26 years to figure that out...

Re:Obligatory Meteor Video

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh lighten up already. Words with bizarre spellings are fun to play with :)

Hiroshima?

[Durrok]

I guess but if I recall correctly hiroshima did a little bit more then just "blow in some curtains". Even if accurate this is a pretty bad metaphor, the Hiroshima bomb brings on ideas of destruction and chaos. Even if you took the radiation aspect away from the Hiroshima bomb it still would have done far more damage. Guess the whole line of "location, location, location" really is true.

Re:Hiroshima?

[iamlucky13]

Of course the meteor would not have had any noteworthy radioactivity and was not in a populated area. I don't remember exactly how often it's estimated to happen and I can't find any sources, but meteors of this size hit the earth a lot more often than most people realize...something like between once a year and once a decade. The comparison to Hiroshima really is about the energy of the impact, not the destructiveness. Little boy had a yield equivalent to approximately 15,000 tons of TNT.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Eudial]

I guess but if I recall correctly hiroshima did a little bit more then just "blow in some curtains". Even if accurate this is a pretty bad metaphor, the Hiroshima bomb brings on ideas of destruction and chaos. Even if you took the radiation aspect away from the Hiroshima bomb it still would have done far more damage. Guess the whole line of "location, location, location" really is true.

Well, I hardly expect those curtains to be at ground-zero.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Silverlancer]

The curtains were something like 150km away from the meteor impact... I expect Hiroshima would have done similar at that range.

Re:Hiroshima?

[AWhiteFlame]

> Guess the whole line of "location, location, location" really is true.

I know this is off topic, but is it me, or whenever I hear something repeated 3 times or more, all I'm thinking is "Developers, developers, developers, developers.."

Re:Hiroshima?

[Nutria]

I guess but if I recall correctly hiroshima did a little bit more then just "blow in some curtains".

If Little Boy was detonated in the far northern mountains of Norway, it also would have had similar minimal effect.

Re:Hiroshima?

[NewmanBlur]

I've been to Hiroshima. The atomic bomb killed 140,000 people, if you include those who died of bomb-related injuries and illnesses, within (iirc) a year after the attack. If you increase that to five years, the number increases by many thousands, though I don't recall the exact number.

The bomb levelled literally the entire city -- only one building remained, now referred to as the Genbaku Dome . It's still standing, but it has been re-inforced with a steel structure to retain the shape it was in after the war.

Anyway, the point is that even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Schemat1c]

Anyway, the point is that even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.

It probably wouldn't be so hard to believe if it hit downtown Manhattan.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, the point is that even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.

Ah, but kinetic energy is proportional to speed squared. A three meter nickel-iron asteroid travelling at 25 km/s has a kinetic energy equivalent to 70 kilotons of TNT. Even a much lighter, slower asteroid can take a big chunk out of a city.

Re:Hiroshima?

[dwater]

> Of course the meteor would not have had any noteworthy radioactivity and was not in a populated area

How can you be so sure?

I mean, if some people on Earth (it'd be the USA, of course), fire off a nuclear missile at Mars, I can just hear those Martians say, "It won't be radioactive".

Re:Hiroshima?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Little Boy was detonated in the far northern mountains of Norway, it also would have had similar minimal effect.

I don't know. I think that might have had a significant effect on American-Norwegian relations, even if Norway was Nazi-occupied at the time. :)

Re:Hiroshima?

[gameforge]

Now THAT'S funny.

Re:Hiroshima?

[SEWilco]

If there were curtains at ground zero, nobody has reported them moving.
But it may have been curtains for them.

Re:Hiroshima?

[gameforge]

I've been to Hiroshima.

Then you know how densely populated it is...

...even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.

In 1980, Mt. St. Helens caused the largest landslide in history... then proceeded to level everything within many miles. Trees brushed over like toothpicks... valleys buried to hundreds of feet in ejecta and ash... it blew the entire north slope of the mountain away.

It had the force of 27,000 atomic bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima (source). It managed to kill all of 57 people.

Please note that energy != destruction. If this meteorite crashed into Hiroshima, depending on the circumstances, the energy released on impact could have the potential to level the entire city and kill over 100,000 people.

And if Mt. St. helens was located in the right spot in Japan, it could have taken out FAR more than this (think millions).

Re:Hiroshima?

[flogic42]

energy, not force, silly!

Re:Hiroshima?

[gameforge]

Sorry. I was having a moment. :)

You're certainly correct.

Re:Hiroshima?

[SEWilco]

Maybe it was like the force of 27,000 bombs rolling down the side of the mountain.

Re:Hiroshima?

[SocietyoftheFist]

I guess you are a nerd that never took any physics or math in college heh? I've been to Hiroshima too, you're being to Hiroshima doesn't mean you understand physics.

Re:Hiroshima?

[zxSpectrum]

If it did, GWB would probably just declare "War on Meteorites", and Americans would all be so much safer.

Uh. Wait.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Eivind]

This one also flattened quite a bit of trees.

Guess what, it makes a *difference* if you hit the centre of a densely populated city, or if you hit some mountains where the main casualties are trees in the surrounding. Hint: when there's -zero- buildings within 20km of the strike-zone it's not that surprising that the human casualties in this case was zero. (as far as we know anyway)

Re:Hiroshima?

[Moghedien]

According to this article, an astronomer at the nearest observation station thinks it was a 10-12 kg meteorite, and he thinks the comparison to the Hiroshima bomb is "a vast exaggeration".

Re:Hiroshima?

[vidarlo]

Anyway, the point is that even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.

Let's do some easy math: E=1/2mv^2 where v is 50000m/sec, m is 100kg. You get quite a lot of energy. Some of it will make heat by friction, but parts of will vapourize stone...

Re:Hiroshima?

[lunaman]

Also probably would have resulted in demotion and reassignment for the navigator of the Enola Gay.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Maserati]

To make up for it, the pilot would be promoted for flying from Saipan in the Pacific to Norway nonstop in a B-29.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Floody]

I've been to Hiroshima. The atomic bomb killed 140,000 people, if you include those who died of bomb-related injuries and illnesses, within (iirc) a year after the attack. If you increase that to five years, the number increases by many thousands, though I don't recall the exact number.

The bomb levelled literally the entire city -- only one building remained, now referred to as the Genbaku Dome . It's still standing, but it has been re-inforced with a steel structure to retain the shape it was in after the war.

Anyway, the point is that even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.

Atomic (and later, thermonuclear) weapons are designed to be detonated a few hundered meters above ground level in order to inflict maximum possible damage. If one was to be detonated at ground level, a large crater would be formed, much of the explosive yield would be absorbed by the ground, and the resulting area-effect collateral damage radius would be considerably reduced.

The "Little Boy" weapon dropped on Hiroshima was detonated at approximately 580m AGL via the use of a barometric fuse.

Thus, while a large(ish) meteor impact may very well produce energy comperable to an atomic weapon; it's obviously not "detonating" at a specific altitude and therefore may appear to produce significantly less damage to the surrounding area.

Is this real?

[neonprimetime]

I google news searched the topic ... and only got 1 result ... M&C Science & Nature ... Is this real?

Re:Is this real?

[49152]

Yes, it's real. The impact also showed up on seismic recorders http://www.astro.uio.no/ita/nyheter/ildkule06/ildk ule06.html (You can study the images in this Norwegian article from the University of Oslo).

Re:Is this real?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's on slashdot -- it MUST be real!

Mushrooms.

[Anonymous Coward]

" Norwegian astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told Aftenposten, Norways largest newspaper, that he would compare the explosive force of the impact with the Hiroshima bomb."

So does that mean they saw a mushroom cloud?

Hmmm...

[th1ckasabr1ck]

Was it as big as the one that (supposedly) fell at Tunguska? Although I'm still pretty sure that was caused by dark matter or a UFO or something.

Yeah, but...

[tool462]

he would compare the explosive force of the impact with the Hiroshima bomb.

Yeah, but how many Libraries of Congress is that?

Re:Yeah, but...

[OldManAndTheC]

Yeah, but how many Libraries of Congress is that?

Well, they sent it back through time, and of course the Library of Congress is much bigger in the future.

So, just one actually.

As to why the Library of Congress was sent back through time, you have to understand that in the future, books are fighting an endless war with Google, which by that time controls all information, or at least, all electronic information. The libraries managed to stop Google's plan to assimilate all printed matter in 2012, and have been fighting back ever since. Sending the Library of Congress back to the past was a desperate maneuver. The idea was to take out Google's campus in Mountain View, California, shortly after they moved there in 2003. A direct strike was calculated to destroy the entire operation, and leave nothing but two wisps of smoke rising from Sergey Brin's charred Birkenstocks. The LOC volunteered for the mission, knowing it was a one way trip.

Sadly, it seems that the books were off in their calcuations not only in space, but also in time. So the future ascendancy of Google is assured.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Let's see. One Library of Congress (1 LoC) is generally equated with twenty terabytes (20 TB). If we assume that all the data is represented in a standard-font printout, then you can fit about 60 lines per page and about 100 characters per line, giving 6 kB per page. So 20 TB / (6 kB/page) = 3.58 * 10^9 pages. Now we know that a ream of paper weighs about 10 pounds. A ream is 500 sheets, so each kilopage weighs 20 lbs. (Assume we're printing single-sided to make this easier.) So 3.58 * 10^9 pp * 20 lb / kpp = 7.16 * 10^7 lbs, or 3.25 * 10^7 kg. Thanks to Einstein's formula, we can convert this mass into energy (using a nuclear reaction - we're going for a Hiroshima-like explosion anyway). Multiply by c^2 and get 2.92 * 10^28 J.

Now the Hiroshima bombing had an estimated yield of 63 terajoules. If we divide that yield by the previous number, we get 2.16 * 10^-11. The bombing of Hiroshima - and by extension, this meteorite - is barely over a trillionth of the power of the entire Library of Congress converted to PURE ENERGY! <evil laugh> Um. Anyway. You get my point.

Re:Yeah, but...

[KDR_11k]

You can only use Einstein's formula for matter-antimatter reactions. Nuclear blasts use fusion or fission, which only releases the mass defect as energy. You could probably blast the atmosphere off Earth with a kilogramm of antimatter.

The Hit

[MrEcho.net]

Im just happy that it didnt hit anywhere else.
Like New York, or any other big city.

Re:The Hit

[Ironsides]

Im just happy that it didnt hit anywhere else. Like New York, or any other big city.

I almost (alomst!) wish it landed near enough one to cause some decent damage. Then maybe people would take the threat of a planet killer serious enough to get a properly funded space program going so a some of us could get off planet (like me). AD ASTRA!

Re:The Hit

[kfg]

Yeah, I would have lost some good friends if it had hit NYC.

And a good chunk of my family, so it wouldn't have been all bad.

KFG

Re:The Hit

[Sparohok]

Then maybe people would take the threat of a planet killer serious enough to get a properly funded space program going so a some of us could get off planet (like me).

Do you really think colonizing other planets is a rational and proportional response to this sort of threat?

If so, can you describe a plausible "planet killer" threat which would make Earth so inhospitable to human life that you'd actually be better off somewhere else in the solar system?

Martin

Re:The Hit

[JonathanR]

And since we will all die some day anyway, what would it really matter if the human race was annihilated?

Re:The Hit

[R3d M3rcury]

Remember these two important truths:

1. Survival of the species is everybody's business.
2. Even if you don't like pickles, it's about the only thing you can do with cucumbers.

Re:The Hit

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Even if you don't like pickles, it's about the only thing you can do with cucumbers.

Boy does that show a serious lack of imagination.

Re:The Hit

[Ironsides]

If so, can you describe a plausible "planet killer" threat which would make Earth so inhospitable to human life that you'd actually be better off somewhere else in the solar system?

How abou the 6 mile wide asteroid that was supposed to have wiped ouot the dinosaurs? Some meteor large enough to kick up enough dust into the atmosphere to cause a multi-year winter?

A different dissaster could be when one of the super volcanos blows (such as the one that Yellow Stone national park is in. Or, WW3 is always a possibility as well.

Single planet species don't survive.

Meanwhile in Cupertino...

[daeley]

Steve Jobs's giant wallscreen sparkles to life. A visibly pale and shaken Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg appears with a panicked situation room full of Norwegian officials behind him.

"Ah, Prime Minister, good," Jobs says with a trademarked smile. "I see you got our little message. Let's finish our chat about DRM regulations...."

(reference)

weird names

[Anonymous Coward]

it would be so much easier to read these reports if the people had the courtesy to have English names without slashed zeros or UTF-8 characters in their names at the least!

How am I to try to read this as a USAian? sheesh!

Yeah, but...Blowout at Hiroshima Cafe.

[Anonymous Coward]

More like "how many burritos is that?"

A Meteørite ønce hit my sister

[EGSonikku]

Nø really! She was carving her initials intø the side øf a røck with a sharpened interspace tøøthbrush given tø her by Svenge -her brøther in law- an an øslø dentist and star øf many Nørweigan møvies: "The Høt Hands øf an øslø Dentist", "Fillings øf Passiøn", "The Huge Mølars øf Hørst Nørdfink"...

Mynd you, Meteørite hits kan be pretti nasti .....

Pictures

[ATH500]

Here is the website of the newspaper and pictures of the meteorite in the sky and the impact: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article134 6820.ece

Re:Pictures

[zoloback]

>>Here is the website of the newspaper and pictures of the meteorite in the sky and the impact: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article134 6820.ece Did anybody else notice the cutie on the bottom of the page?... I'm sorry but i found it "difficult" to concentrate on the pictures of some unsexy meteorite and ended up spending over half an hour looking at the "bilder" posts... Well, i guess that's what slashdot is all about.

Re:Pictures

[warrigal]

It's a meteor in the sky; a meteorite on the ground.

Re:Pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be a fake. The photos were ambiguous and the words were gibberish.

Re:Pictures

[fafaforza]

Why look at one meteorite up there in the sky, when you can look at two, right there on her chest, in high resolution!

Re:Pictures

[ockegheim]

It looks like the meteor I saw a few years ago on a winter's night in Melbourne. A blazing fireball with a tail streaking across the sky is a very impressive thing to see.

Re:Pictures

[smoker2]

Well in the sense that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I didn't understand a word of the linked page, I'd just like to say - Nice tits !

Welcome!

[joh_tank]

I for one, welcome our new chondrite overlords!

Re:Welcome!

[Anonymous Coward]

That just too carbonaceous for words!

Good, but...

[nstlgc]

.. what we're really concerned about: Høw many møøses gøt killed?

Re:Good, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Reindeer man, reindeer!

Re:Good, but...

[nrowe]

Um, that would be "how many Moosi" got killed?

That was no meteor..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thor just dropped his hammer.

similar to Hiroshima or Nagasaki???

[EGSonikku]

http://cache.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/004 11/_L04nedslaget1006_j_411040h.jpg

=

http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/PHY106/GIF/Still/Ph ysics/Damage13-hiroshima-c.jpg

Did they forget a metric conversion or somthing?

Oblig. Impact Calculator

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever the topic of meteors comes up, someone has to post a link to the University of Arizona impact effects calculator. Play with the numbers, see if you can destroy the earth.

Also worth checking out along the Lucifer's hammer line of thought is How to Destroy the Earth

I tried a quick reverse engineering of the meteor with the calculator. An iron meteor 4.5 meters in diameter moving 20 km/s hitting crystalline rock at 45 degrees will have a yield of 18 kilotons...slightly higher than the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima. The average interval of an impact of this size on earth is about once every 5 years. Most go largely unnoticed. The earth is a big place.

Re:Oblig. Impact Calculator

[thelamecamel]

Interesting, but I'd take a punt that most of these meteorites go into the sea rather than hitting crystalline rock. They'd make a mighty big splash, but probably slow down enough before hitting the sea bed.

Someone set up us the bømb

[Anonymous Coward]

Minion: "The first test of the iMeteor has been successfully completed sir."
Jobs: "Very well."
Ive: "As usual our secret development program has reaped rewards."
Woz: "Hey! No way did I mean to use artificial meteors on real people. The idea was a prank!"
Jobs: "Remove him from the building! Now, to the next targets: Singapore and Redmond."

Rubbish...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Was it as big as the one that (supposedly) fell at Tunguska? Although I'm still pretty sure that was caused by dark matter or a UFO or something.

I beg to differ! Tunguska was quite clearly caused by a colossal supernatural fart.

Don't mess with Steve

[eweu]

Steve Jobs has "contacts" all over the universe, I guess.

Breaking News!!

[MBC1977]

In today's news, "Steve Jobs was arrested for dropping an SAB (Small Apple Bomb), accidently on purpose in Norway, to get them to see things HIS way about iTunes EULA, he was dragged off to a sanitarium, screaming, DRM Rules the planet!! DRM Rules the planet!!" I'm guessing he do not get a FAIRPLAY. MBC

paging Google Earth...

[TheSHAD0W]

I wonder (1) how recent and what resolution Google Earth's latest imagery is, and (2) can we get them to take another shot ASAP and compare them?

Re:paging Google Earth...

[Stealth Potato]

Uh, this may come as a surprise, but Google actually does not own a massive network of multi-billion-dollar imaging satellites. All the images on Google Earth are cobbled together from various collections of satellite and aerial photographs, and are anywhere from one to ten years old. New images will be available whenever somebody else takes them, and once Google gets a hold of them.

Re:paging Google Earth...

[Joebert]

Sure, it's gonna be awhile though, the meteor gun takes ages to reload.

Re:paging Google Earth...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, this may come as a surprise, but Google actually does not own a massive network of multi-billion-dollar imaging satellites.

True, but they are working on it. You just wait until they get ready to begin stage 2...

It's how you distribute the energy.

[DigiShaman]

There is a difference in how the energy was distributed. With the A-Bomb, it was an atmospheric blast. With the space rock, the energy was absorbed into the Earths crust.

Re:It's how you distribute the energy.

[Deadstick]

Should be modded up. An airburst sends down a mongo shock wave that flattens structures over a big area (not to mention the radiation that isn't a factor in the case of a meteor impact). A ground impact/explosion "over-destroys" a much smaller area, using its energy to excavate a crater instead of knocking buildings down.

The Tunguska event of 1908 devastated a really big area because it was an airburst: apparently a comet whose ice content flashed into steam when it hit the atmosphere.

rj

Re:It's how you distribute the energy.

[JonathanR]

So it would be better to compare it with the Sedan Nuclear test?

Re:It's how you distribute the energy.

[vertinox]

Actually, airbursts are apparently quite common with even Iron metorites...

Take the Meteor Crater in Arizona for example. Throughout its history (after being discovered and acknowledged to be a impact from a space object) people thought they could find a rather large iron core. There were many owners of the site who set up drilling/mining projects so they could find the "grand prize" of this object.

However, all this time they could never find this no matter how deep they went, but all over the site was plenty of iron and other minerals like coesite and stishovite (and the special quartz you can only make when you have high energy impacts like an abomb).

So it is pretty much speculated that the object had an airburst right before it impacted turning into plasma. The crater was created through raw energy of this explosion rather than the object burrying itself into the earth.

Re:It's how you distribute the energy.

[isthisorigional]

the word mongo is so under used these days. +1 mongo

Re:It's how you distribute the energy.

[Deadstick]

The story they told me when I visited that site was that no meteoritic material was found when they drilled in the crater, but then Barringer did some experiments with firing rifle bullets into dirt and found that a highly oblique impact can produce a circular crater...so they tried drilling outside the crater and did find fragments.

rj

Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew someone was going to type this out.... you beat me to it! :-D

Ah, Norway!

[autophile]

My sister was hit by a meteørite ønce...

--Rob

Fiction or Reality?

[Yehooti]

Though we've seen this information posted multiple places on the www, considering the nature of this beast how can anyone know if it's factual or not?

Re:Fiction or Reality?

[tyldis]

It's real allright, but the Hiroshima-comparison is kinda far fetched. It might be a good comparison mathemathical-wise, but it sure as hell doesn't work for regular people. There was no obvious destruction and they aren't certain they have found the spot where it crashed yet.

Nobody lives close to where it hit, and there isn't any major destruction, but witnesses claim they heard and felt the impact from a long distance. True or not, I don't know.
Not sure how fast these babies travel, but it's estimated that it weighed 10-12 kilograms.

This is newsworthy for a local newspaper in Norway, but not /.-worthy. Trust me.

PS: Aftenposten is the biggest newspaper in Norway? THAT'S A BLODY SLASHVERTISEMENT FOR A VERY SMALL NEWSPAPER! But it's regarded as a serious newspaper, even though it's small.

Obligatory Star Wars Reference

[HunterTelevision]

"That's funny, the damage doesn't look as bad from out here."

Brightness ...

[Barraketh]

Brightness of midnight sunlit summer sky?

I think something got lost in the translation...

(Yes, i realize that it took place beyond the arctic circle, but it still sounds strange =))

Re:Brightness ...

[OblongPlatypus]

What sounds so strange about it?

If you mean linguistically, I guess I can see what you mean - I think they're trying to use "midnight sun" as a single noun, making "midnight sunlit" an adjective.

But yes, the sky really is sunlit 24/7 up there right now.

Re:Brightness ...

[Eivind]

The journalist had a linguistic problem. Normally, he could say in the brigth dayligth. Only, it was nigth. And most people would, if not instructed otherwise, assume nigth to be dark.

"It could be seen even in the brigthness of nigth" ? Sounds strange too. There's such a thing as a moonlit nigth, so why not invent a sunlit nigth ? We do get those -- once you get north of the polar circle. (and even in southern Norway, like Stavanger where I live, you can still have sun until like 11pm.)

Re:Brightness ...

[bablefisk]

Slightly off topic, but the midnight sun makes it damn hard to get any sleep without proper curtains. And who feeels like even trying to sleep when the sun is shining?

I live in Tromsø, in Troms, and a lot of students in the complex where I live cover their windows completely with tinfoil, and it's not because they worry about having their minds read.

Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard

[Anonymous Coward]

Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard is the only superstar scientist in Norway. Come to think of it, he's the only superstar scientist period. He's constantly on the TV-channel (the state owned TVPrawda), presenting astronomy in an extremely engergetic manner. He's kinda funny for an übernerd. Now you know. Achtung!

Janker dreper, pass på barna deres.

Re:Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately for a TV superstar, people often mispronounce his first name.

Yeah, you'd probably have to...

[Cyno01]

They're saying it was more as powerful as an atomic weapon.

Is it listed on eBay yet?

[elgee]

Someone could make some SERIOUS money off that meteorite.

Re:Is it listed on eBay yet?

[Poeir]

Knowing eBay, it will be 30 or so someones, all offering the actual meteorite.

Don't panic

[theid0]

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[TCQuad]

Yeah, but how many Libraries of Congress is that?

Well, Hiroshima was 15 kilotons or 6.3x10^13 J and one burning Library of Congress is 7.3×10^14 J, so ~8.5% of one LoC per meteor strike.

Yeah, I'm going to go pretend I didn't just spend part of my Friday night researching that calculation now...

Re:8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[Farmer Tim]

Brilliant calculation, but useless without knowing the meteor's volume in Volkswagens.

Re:8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[1u3hr]

Brilliant calculation, but useless without knowing the meteor's volume in Volkswagens.

Meteor sizes are measured in the "Texa". This meteorite was approximately 5 microTexas, nothing to get excited about.

Re:8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[Farmer Tim]

Meteor sizes are measured in the "Texa".

Damn it, when are you Americans going to start using internationally recognised units?!?

Re:8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

You never heard of Texas? It's where the current US President has a ranch.

Re:8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[Farmer Tim]

It's where the current US President has a ranch.

Well, that doesn't make me want to know more...

Re:8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[Cybrex]

The "Volkswagen" is reserved as a unit of measurement for large artillery and battleship cannons. The "Hiroshima Bomb" is a much more flexible unit, being usable to describe everything from cometary impacts to the flatulence of the guy in the next cube over.

Re:8.5 x 10^-2 bLoC

[Farmer Tim]

The two units describe different things. You can describe the size of a battleship cannon in Volkswagons, but attempting to describe the energy release in Volkswagons makes no sense whatsoever.

The point is, if you know the energy released in Libraries of Congress and the size in Volkswagons, you can easily calculate the velocity in football fields per second.

do they ever sleep?

[chienyul]

"Farmer Peter Bruvold was out on his farm in Lyngseidet with a camera because his mare Virika was about to foal for the first time."

The photo was taken at 2:05am although it looked like they can still play a few rounds of golf before sunset.
I was wondering if the Norwegian (and their horses) ever sleep in summer.

Re:do they ever sleep?

[Anonymous Coward]

"although it looked like they can still play a few rounds of golf before sunset."

A few hundred, given that the sun won't set until the end of July.

savelivesinmay

[geneshifter]

These weird people are claiming it was some sort of weapon ETs will use to kill us, lol: http://www.savelivesinmay.com/

touché

[Scrameustache]

Even if you took the radiation aspect away from the Hiroshima bomb it still would have done far more damage. Guess the whole line of "location, location, location" really is true.

Of course the meteor would not have had any noteworthy radioactivity and was not in a populated area.

Ah, a very insightfull retort.

But you forgot to mention that the radioactive fallout would be much smaller, AND that the coordinates of the impact place it far from any city or industry.

How about your own brother?

[mangu]

...or is he your cousin? I'm pretty sure that Noël Coward must be some relative of yours, since your last name isn't very common, and he has an ISO-8859-15 character in his first name.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[49152]

Perhaps they allow it because the letter Ø tends to be included in almost all 8 bit ascii variants including the US ones. Kanji (Japanese) on the other hand does not.

Now for the science!

[gerf]

Only if the Hiroshima bomb was a dud. Seriously, a bomb unleashing 63 terajoules of energy (from wikipedia). Even if that rock was 300kg, that means that it would have to be travelling at 648,000m/s or about 1,500,000 mph, in order to have the same amount of energy. Heck, that's about .0022c!

To say this guy overstated the impact is an understatement in itself.

Re:Now for the science!

[JDevers]

Um, how can you make this calculation without knowing the mass of the meteorite. The article states that it was substantially larger than 90 kg, but the actual size it unknown.

Substantially larger could be 300 kg, or it could be 3000 kg. That is a massive difference, a 3 metric ton rock would deliver a pretty substantial blow. More than likely they ARE overstating this a bit, but an explosion even a tenth that size would be quite substantial and the closest thing most readers could relate to would be an atomic bomb.

Re:Now for the science!

[Vellmont]

Only if the Hiroshima bomb was a dud. Seriously, a bomb unleashing 63 terajoules of energy (from wikipedia). Even if that rock was 300kg, that means that it would have to be travelling at 648,000m/s or about 1,500,000 mph, in order to have the same amount of energy. Heck, that's about .0022c!

To say this guy overstated the impact is an understatement in itself.

Where did you get the figure 300kg? You just made it up? Maybe someone can estimate the energy of the impact from seismometer readings, but your estimate is based on no evidence at all and is essentially worthless.

Re:Now for the science!

[RsG]

Perhaps you're mistaking entry mass for landing mass?

A meteorite's surface vapourizes from reentry heat when it enters the atmosphere. If the meteorite is small enough, the entire object will be plasma long before it hits the ground; it takes a large or dense object to survive reentry, and even then much of it's mass is lost.

That doesn't however mean that it disperses. There is at least one theory that a meteorite could hit the ground as a ball of plasma with a solid core, due to the surrounding air pressure preventing the superheated surface from dispersing even after it vapourizes. I seem to recall seeing this put forward for the Tunguska blast in Siberia. IANA Astrophysicist, so I don't know how fast the object would need to be moving, or how large it would have to be initially, to produce this effect.

If that did happen, what would you use for your calculations? The mass of the meteorite wouldn't all be solid when it hit, and whatever material wasn't vapourized by descent or on impact would only make up a fraction of the mass present during the impact. The core might be 90kg, or 300kg, or whatever, but using that figure to calculated the speed the object on impact would be incorrect. You'd need to mass of the meteorite on reentry, minus whatever mass bled off during descent.

However, I would agree that comparing the impact to an atomic bomb blast is silly. It's like comparing a firecracker explosion to a bullet impact - yes, you can say that one has X amount of energy and the other has Y (and you could probably calculate this by measuring the gunpowder present in each, and determining how much energy you get from burning it), but that comparison doesn't actually tell you anything useful, since the energy is applied in a very different fashion. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Re:Now for the science!

[glockenspieler]

So, how many Libraries of Congress would this be?

This happens other places also

[SpacePunk]

We had one of these a few weeks ago in south east New Mexico. The explosion shook the house. People that did see it said it was the 'size of a dinner plate' before it exploded. Unfortunately nobody had a camera handy. Didn't get much media coverage at all.

Re:This happens other places also

[Anonymous Coward]

We had one of these a few weeks ago in south east New Mexico.

No offense intended to parent, but my rule of thumb is to take all it-fell-from-the-sky stories coming out of southeast New Mexico with a large, tin-foil-covered grain of salt.

Re:This happens other places also

[Anonymous Coward]

How could the witnesses have estimated the size of an object traveling at such a high velocity?

Re:This happens other places also

[SpacePunk]

All measurments are arbitary unless there's at least a photo with some sort of scale object in it. What they did was probably look at it, see the fireball, and think "Shit, from here it looks about as big as a dinner plate." Not literally, "Ya know, I approximate the size of the asteroid itself to be that of a dinner plate."

Re:This happens other places also

[SpacePunk]

The fireball from entry was spotted as far away as Albuquerque(sp).

Re:This happens other places also

[innot]

About 10 years ago, on a night flight, I saw a meteor scratch the atmosphere.
It started of as an orange glowing object on the horizon and within about 20 seconds it flew directly over us, leaving a big trail of ionized air which continued to glow like an aurora for a few minutes.
Coudn't see where it went thereafter (no rear view mirrors in the cockpit :-) but as it seemed to be traveling on a straight trajectory I assume that it left the atmosphere again. At first I thought it was a rocket, but it was to big for anything that would be fired over the Bay of Biscay.
Hard to tell the size and distance of the object, but it looked a bit like the one Meteor captured on video as it flies over a mountain range.

Re:This happens other places also

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, please include links or conversions to "metric dinner plates" for our international friends.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[Takuryu]

My guess would be the reason is because 1) "Ø" is a member of the standard Western character set on most computers and that 2) Japanese and Korean characters are not. The chance of a browser suddenly interpreting everything as garbage characters due to the inclusion of "Ø" would be rather small, whereas my Japanese OS sometimes refuses to accurately represent Japanese characters unless I manually tell it which of the three standards (Shift_JIS, EUC-JP, ISO-2022-JP) it should use. While I can't speak for Korean, Japanese characters also use a two-bit encoding which often cause problems when attempting to use without the relevent language packs installed.

Besides, if you want to use Japanese characters, just go to slashdot.jp

Who is tracking these things?

[ManuelKelly]

I thought NASA was tracking these things. This sounds like it was big enough to be a major disaster if it hit a metropolitan area. Are they just watching for the ones that are big enough to wipe out a state, and not a city?

Re:Who is tracking these things?

[Makoss]

The problem is not the people doing the tracking, but the funding they don't get.

There are some effots being made such as http://neat.jpl.nasa.gov/> but they get next to no funding.

How many people are you going to be able to convince when all you can say is that "It's likely one will hit a populated area sometime in the future".The general reaction that I've witnessed is "If it was going to happen, why hasn't it yet?" and "That's just science fiction".

It's far to abstract a threat for the vast majority of people to care about. . .

Re:Who is tracking these things?

[enosys]

Have you looked at the picture link that someone else posted? It looks like it'd at most damage one building.

Re:Who is tracking these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is simply too much sky to watch, so our efforts are pretty much useless, we only really watch for the most massive of things, stuff that will end life and etc and even then, we probably wouldnt notice until forward debris started pelting us.

Re:Who is tracking these things?

[MrRee]

Your "It's likely to hit a populated area sometime in the future," is a typical engineer response. Most people are not engineers and engineering "probabilities" don't mean squat to the average person when they are trying to make a living and feed themselves and/or a family.

So instead I suggest, "A meteor will one day hit the earth and you will find your dog dead, your car destroyed, you house burned, your family suffocated, your job gone, your money useless, your government pointless, and life as you knew it forever and completely changed. You may survive but we doubt it. That's why we need money to find and track these things." Maybe that'll get some funding.

Re:Who is tracking these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

A meteor will one day hit the earth and you will find your dog dead, your car destroyed, you house burned, your family suffocated, your job gone, your money useless, your government pointless, and life as you knew it forever and completely changed. You may survive but we doubt it. That's why we need money to find and track these things.

Yeah, because that happened to my grandfather, and his dad, and his grandfather too...
There are more dangerous thing that deserve serious funding - the environment, pandemic prevention, nuclear disarmament, third world poverty.
Asteroid defence - it's worth doing it cheap-and-easy style but there's no point in allocating billions to it.

lutefisk

[snuf23]

It means:

"Please come and eat our gelatinous fish, it's prepared with lye."

Re:lutefisk

[damonlab]

Lye isn't that bad for you in small quantities. When in college, there was a neighbor across the hall that made homemade jumbo pretzels and dipped them in lye that was heavily dilluted in water before salting them. Me and my three roommates ate the pretzels with no side effects. One of the roommates, however, freaked out when he found out about the lye. This was after he had already eaten three or four of the pretzels. He called poison control and everything.

Re:lutefisk

[snuf23]

Lutefisk is soaked in water and lye for two days but after that it's soaked in water for several days to get the lye out. I don't think it's dangerous to eat, just nasty.

Re:lutefisk

[a-moll]

Lutefisk is nothing compared to some other norwegian "delicatesses": Smalahove and Rakafisk, and maybe gammelost (translates old-cheese).
I really recomends the wikipedia-article on smalahove, verry funny description of how it is eaten.

Re:lutefisk

[LunaticTippy]

Well now I know what is funny to you. That was disgusting! Thanks for the link.

Re:lutefisk

[snuf23]

Hmmm. Rakafisk vs lutefisk is a fair fight, but smalahove is hands down the winner. Possibly beats out the pig face they sell at the asian market here.

A møøse...

[dj245]

..ønce bit mi sister...

No translation necessary

[slowtuna]

hatt enorm fart

Quote : "Enorm fart."

[kernel panic attack]

Followed through to the link mentioned earlier: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article134 6820.ece

From that article, this one line jumped out at me: "Enorm fart."

Now granted, I don't speak the native tongue up there in Norway, but I think we all can translate that.

Also found this sesmic data on the web: http://www.norsar.no/NDC/bulletins/gbf/2006/GBF061 57.html

  NORTH OF SVALBARD
            Origin time Lat Lon Azres Timres Wres Nphase Ntot Nsta Netmag
    2006-157:02.13.21.0 83.81 2.84 5.25 0.18 1.49 2 2 1 0.04

    Sta Dist Az Ph Time Tres Azim Ares Vel Snr Amp Freq Fkq Pol Arid Mag
    SPI 668.3 346.0 Pn 02.14.50.4 0.2 349.0 3.0 10.1 5.2 50.5 4.93 1 345124
    SPI 668.3 346.0 Sn 02.15.55.8 0.2 338.5 -7.5 5.8 4.1 34.0 8.43 3 2 345125 0.04

Re:Quote : "Enorm fart."

[ThJ]

I'm Norwegian. "Fart" means speed and "enorm" should be pretty obvious. ;) I should also add that Norwegian for "speed bumps" is "fartshumper". Gotta tell you, I'm looking forward to seeing the face of some tourist reading that...

Noooooo

[gerf]

The point is, neither the readers, nor the authors can relate to an atomic bomb. They simply have no personal knowledge of such energy. Thus, it's a pointless analogy.

Re:Noooooo

[ceoyoyo]

I disagree. Atomic bombs are the most energy our civilization can easily release in a short period of time. That nature smacks us as powerfully with a space rock somewhere randomly every five years or so is interesting.

Re:Noooooo

[Vellmont]

The point is, neither the readers, nor the authors can relate to an atomic bomb

I don't know about you, but I've heard that an atomic bomb was detonated in a populated area a couple times, and I understand it killed quite a few people and destroyed the cities. I'd say that's being able to relate to the power of an atomic bomb. You don't need "personal knowledge" to understand how destructive something can be, an imagination does wonders.

Re:Meanwhile in...

[vux984]

Apple did this?

Nah... it was the RIAA/MPAA!

Although, guys, The Pirate Bay is in Sweden, not Norway.

Closer than usual though.

MOD UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty good. I wish I had mod points.

the movies have taugh us all

[circletimessquare]

we need to know about trusting norwegians with things that fall from the sky

Re:the movies have taugh us all

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be Sweden, you insensitive clod!

Re:the movies have taugh us all

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. The helicopter had Norwegian markings, and the scientist who shot at the dogs spoke norwegian.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[reaktor]

Besides, if you want to use Japanese characters, just go to slashdot.jp

I prefer:

http://solidot.org/

(Maybe this is Chinese? I can't tell.)

I don't understand Norwegian but...

[serutan]

Based on the guy in the photo, the story seems to be about some Norwegian relative of Steve Ballmer.

Must've been an expensive movie promotion

[Kalkin]

What, Superman is released soon...next there will be reports of flying men with capes originating from the meteor's site?

Nah, it was about whale research

[ynotds]

Once they get their targeting more precise Revenge of the Minkes might revisit Hiroshima.

I saw it too

[Keyframe2]

Not long ago, the Black Gate of Armonk swung open. The lights went out, my skin crawled, and dogs began to howl. I asked my neighbor what it was and he said, 'Those are the nazgul. Once they were human, now they are Sony's PR Marketing Team.'

Very small meteorite hit my back yard...

[Hamster Lover]

When I seven I was in our very large backyard swinging on our swingset with my friends one summer when we saw this streak of light high in the sky. It was only visible for a few seconds, but as we watched the streak grew brighter until it streaked over the roof of our house. About twenty or thirty feet above the ground it seemed to disintigrate with a popping sound. We searched the backyard for debris but didn't find anything. The meteorite was so small that I am not surprised, but it sure was bright for something so small. That was very cool. Even our neighbor on the hill above us came running down and said he saw the meteorite and wondered if it hit our house.

Years later as a teenager I was sleeping out on our deck to avoid the summer heat inside the house and I was woken by this shrieking sound, like fireworks, except much louder. I jumped up and saw a very bright, long streak of light screaching across the sky over the lake our house overlooked. As the meteor approached the ground the screaching got louder and higher in pitch until it seemed to "pop" into nothingness. Besides the incredibly high pitched shriek, I was awed by how bright the meteor was as it lit up our deck like a very bright lantern.

Obviously, both these meteorites do not compare in size to the one that hit Norway, but it was still an awe inspiring sight.

Re:Very small meteorite hit my back yard...

[forgetful]

Another meteor tale... I was camped in the remote desert with a group of friends (desert location not important, only indicates excellent viewing conditions)perhaps seventeen years ago. Everyone else had turned in except for another fellow and me. We were having another brew and talking near the campfire embers, when I saw a meteor come in. No big deal, I've probably seen tens of thousands in my life (thousands during any one really good meteor shower alone), except the leading edge of the cone of light expanded way more than usual. This meteor was moving rather slowly as meteors go, and in perhaps one second I could actually see a pitted surface with at least one identifiable "crater." It eventually was at least one-half the width of the full moon or one-fourth degree. The "lower" rim of the object was considerably brighter than the face we were seeing. It never got extremely brilliant and kind of faded out (darkened) rather than flashed out. It was in view overall for perhaps three seconds. I could not believe it, and calmly asked my friend if he had seen that. He said yes, and we just sort of let it go and started talking about other meteors, satellites, etc. that we had seen. I do not think either one of us really believed we had seen it. I still have trouble with the idea, except I had not had THAT many brewskies. Some years later I did some estimations assuming various diameters, velocities, and depth of penetration into the atmosphere before skipping out, and decided, yes, a meteor of perhaps 20 to 40 meters would be visible as a similar object under plausible conditions. Actually, I think anyone who spends much quality time under clear night skies, i.e., soaking in hot springs, drinking beer around small campfires, night hiking, etc., (as opposed to equally honorable time with an eye glued to a narrow field eyepiece) will eventually see many remarkable--even once-in-a-lifetime things. I am envious that you actually heard your meteors; the one described above was silent.

Images

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an image of the meteorite and possible area were the impact happened.

proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

this is clearly proof of global warming if ever there was some. al gore was right!

Re:proof!

[chawly]

Mr. Gore is ALWAYS right ! The difficulty is to know what he's right about today.

Digg had this 3 days ago

[Harmonious Botch]

When it comes out the other side, will it be a dupe?

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[ZorroXXX]

And Wikipedia tells me: Ø is basically equivalent to 'o' with an umlaut from German, so I can only deduce that the proper Anglification of the letter would be "oe", as in my last name.

You are correct in that "ø" -> "oe" is a normal translation, although "ø" -> "o" is also sometimes used. The LaTeX command is "\o{}", html code is "&oslash;". In Swedish the ø is written as "ö", but is otherwise the same character. The pronounciation is somewhat similar to the english words hurry and Sir, like "Yes, Sør, hørry up".

Some of the comments made here ( 15506917, 15507239, 15507258, 15506976, 15506998, 15507060) gives an almost childish "look ma, a funny character" impression, but I assume this is a monolingual atrtifact like described in this article:

Prof. Bialystok first noticed bilingual children were proficient in blocking out irrelevant information about 20 years ago. When asked to identify a grammatically correct sentence, for example, both bilinguals and monolinguals are, by age 5, able to choose, "Apples grow on trees," over "Apple trees on grow" as the correct one.

But when it came to asking "Apples grow on noses" versus "Apples nose on grow," only the bilingual children were able to choose the right answer. Although the first sentence is grammatically correct, monolingual children could not get over its silliness. "That's crazy," they'd shout, "You can't say that!"

666

[Anonymous Coward]

in the new "omen" movie, they use catastrophic events in recent years as metaphors for stuff that happens in revelation. e.g. mountain of fire == world trade center, flood killing thousands == tsunami in sri lanka. when they just made up something about meteors, i thought, "that's kind of lame. it's too bad a decent size meteorite hasn't been in the news lately."

Meteorite

[suv4x4]

If around the meteor there's oddly a huge amount of worms that morph for days into two-head lizards, dragons and blue monkeys, get the hell outta there.

Even better reference?

[snowwrestler]

Smilla Jasperson was not available for comment.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[ZorroXXX]

And Wikipedia tells me: Ø is basically equivalent to 'o' with an umlaut from German, so I can only deduce that the proper Anglification of the letter would be "oe", as in my last name. This letter does not exist in the English language at all, so I assert that it has as much right to be in English documents as Korean characters do.

By the way, I do not think that your argument here is valid.

And Wikipedia tells me: &pi; is an irrational number with an infinite number of decimals, the first 50 being 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510, so I can only deduce that the proper Anglification of the number would be "3.14", as learned in school. This letter does not exist in the English language at all, so I assert that it has as much right to be in English documents as Korean characters do.

(unfortunately slashdot does not accept the pi characters as input, so I had to write as &pi;)

Oh Sh8t!

[Tablizer]

There goes my profits from selling Meteor Insurance.

Come to Norway!

[winphreak]

It's better than Kenya!

Insurance myths

[freeweed]

Most insurance policies don't cover "acts of God" or even "natural disasters" of this type.

Why do people still think we live in the 19th century?

Insurance policies today typically cover most Acts of God. Hail, lightning, windstorm, water damage, you name it. What they don't cover is "catastrophes so big we'd need a few billion to even start paying claims".

Hell, you can actually buy earthquake, tornado, and hurricane insurance, if you're willing to pay for it. However, your $400/year policy doesn't quite amoritize out to the 1 in 50 year chance of your part of the gulf coast being destroyed.

For the record (and to stay on topic): impact by falling object is generally covered. Some go far enough to ensure you for falling aircraft (creepy), and possibly falling spacecraft (satellites is the idea, but who knows what will happen this July).

And yes, I used to sell property insurance :)

Re:Insurance myths

[Anonymous Coward]

And yes, I used to sell property insurance :)


omg we got an insurance agent on slashdot, that place just got sooo lame :s

Re:Insurance myths

[__aaclcg7560]

Why do people still think we live in the 19th century?

Are you kidding? I've seen insurance language for nuclear attack from USSR/Soviet Russia and the Warsaw Pact. That's definitely 20th century. I'm starting think that the language used in insurance policies are probably the best indicator of what we're afraid of the most at a given time.

Wish they made it easier to do rev. calcs

[jd]

I reversed the calculation to guess at how big the rock was that created the crater in Antarctica that was recently discovered, which is 300 miles across. I assumed that the asteroid had a fairly low density (porus rock). Assuming the object is travelling "slowly" (11 km/s), it would need to be 60 miles across to create a final crater of the necessary size. Even at 300 miles away (the edge of the crater), wind speeds would hit 8200 mph and the earth tremors would still be 11.3 on the Richter scale. A "typical" asteroid strike would be 17 km/s. To create the necessary crater, you'd be looking at a lump of rock 45 miles across. Most of the effects would be the same, except there would be a gigantic fireball. Again, at the crater's rim, you'd be looking at 8.53 x 10^10 joules/m^2 of energy for about 9110 seconds - enough to vaporize anything remotely close to the impact.

Assuming typical velocity, an iron asteroid would be a mere 22 miles across. The radiation would only be two-thirds that of the porus asteroid at the same speed.

If this was indeed the impact crater that triggered the initial phase of the Great Extinction, then the low density/high energy strike would produce vastly more heat and therefore affect the climate that much more.

Record setting?

[raider_red]

Two issues with this. First, I think whatever hit Tunguska was probably bigger. Second, unless this thing kills most of the major species on earth, it's probabaly nowhere near the record.

It may be the biggest confirmed meteor though.

Re:Record setting?

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Yes, but AKAIK Tunguska is not, and never has been, in Norway.

My meteorite near-miss

[PapayaSF]

The evening of December 24th, 1995 I was soaking in one of the famous cliffside hot tubs at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. I heard a jetlike roar coming towards us from over the hills to the east. I looked up and saw, nearly overhead, what looked like the flame of welding torch, looking roughly an inch and a half or so long at arm's length, and quite low, perhaps 500-600 feet. At first I thought it was a jet fighter on afterburner, but I couldn't see a silhouette of an aircraft against the stars. As it passed over and out to sea, I saw it break into at least two pieces just before the flame went out. The pieces must have fallen into the water, but I didn't see or hear any splashes. Then I realized it was a meteor, and that I'd been close enough to hear it!

Sadly, I was also the only person in the hot tubs geeky enough to look up and see the whole thing and to be totally thrilled by this experience....

Re:My meteorite near-miss

[gfreeman]

Idiot. That was Santa Claus.

Ahhh!!!!

[tonyr1988]

Whoa whoa whoa...

Where's Pat Robertson? I need his opinion! Who's immorality caused this?

I bet it was those people over at digg....

Re:Ahhh!!!!

[IHC Navistar]

Guilty!

-----

Mr. Burns: "Are these scandals personal, financial, or treasonous?" Krusty the Clown: "Russian hooker.....You tell me."

they deserve it

[stud9920]

A møøse once bit my sister

Google Maps

[Aggrav8d]

What are the coordinates? Has Google Maps been updated to show the damage?

Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard

[Hootenanny]

That's it! I've finally found a name for my firstborn son! 8)

Bruce Willis ensues

[Bushido Hacks]

Wasn't this the meteor that was suppost to be here last week?
Where's Bruce Willis at a time like this?

Was Kenya right about Norway?

So many questions, so little time!

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[Anonymous Coward]

While many Americans are still under the impression that everyone is using the good old American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), that hasn't been the case for decades. Since ASCII is a 7-bit code and computers tend to prefer 8-bit bytes, the ASCII standard has been extended to different 8-bit character sets ever since its inception, and the differences were standardized in the 1980's.

The standardization lead to all computers in rich computer-dependent countries (except Japan) using the ISO-8859-1 character set, or the slightly different Windows-1252 character set. This is why funny European characters like ü or å show perfectly well on American computers: you aren't living in the world of ASCII any more.

Of course, lately there's been more and more movement towards Unicode, breaking character set compatibility once more. Hopefully we'll finally have full international compatibility in a decade or two, and then you can finally use Japanese characters on slashdot.

The lexicological effects of falling down a gravit

[KFury]

Technically a meteorite didn't streak across the sky; a meteor streaked across the sky. Once it hits Earth the pieces are meteorites, and before it entered the atmosphere it was an asteroid.

Saying a meteorite streaked across the sky is like saying ham likes to wallow in the mud.

Re:Giant Røck There's Nøway

[davidsyes]

That's unpossibøle!

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[mako1138]

Some of those comments are references to the opening credits of Mønti Pythøn lk den Hølie Grailen.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[R3d M3rcury]

so I can only deduce that the proper Anglification of the number would be "3.14"

Unless you're from Alabama, in which case it would be "3".

Re:The lexicological effects of falling down a gra

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean before it entered the atmosphere it was a "meteoroid", right?

Norway?

[HyoImowano]

More like Snorway!

Probability?

[anno1602]

A meteor will one day hit the earth and you will find your dog dead, your car destroyed, you house burned, your family suffocated, your job gone, your money useless, your government pointless, and life as you knew it forever and completely changed. You may survive but we doubt it.

How likely is that, exactly?

Monty Python?

[Anonymous Coward]

A mØØse Ønce bit my sister...

Hah, missed.

[Spacejock]

Must have been a Microsoft Meteorite (TM)(R) - They programmed it to hit Finland, and it missed.

Re:Hah, missed.

[Anonymous Coward]

This was just the beta. Microsoft Meteorite (TM)(R)won't be out till 2007.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[taursir]

The pronounciation is somewhat similar to the english words hurry and Sir, like "Yes, Sør, hørry up".

Depends on the dialect of English. The Finnish ö, for instance is sometimes similar to the ö of Swedish, ø of Norwegian; on the other hand my pronunciation of english 'sir' and 'hurry' is really nowhere near it. Saying something like 'sør' and 'hørry' to me sounds really funny. ;)

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[ZorroXXX]

Ah, I was not aware of that. Thank you for the enlightenment. I see now that some of them makes more sense, but when writing for a large audience like slashdot, whatever cultural references you use, someone are guarantied to not get them. I therefore prefer to always include a little hint or reference to counter that, like for instance in this post. It was moderated redundant which was sort of fair enough since it was not the first reference to digital watches being overrated, but all of the then existing posts assumed that the reader already had knowledge of Douglas Adams' works. That is why I wrote mine.

Wrong: Aftenposten is not biggest

[maggern]

Offtopic: The newspaper Aftenposten is not Norway's biggest newspaper. The biggest is Verdens Gang (Short:VG), followed by Dagbladet. Aftenposten is 3rd. Sloppy submitter.

Re:Wrong: Aftenposten is not biggest

[Crizp]

The biggest is Verdens Gang (Short:VG), followed by Dagbladet. Aftenposten is 3rd

Their circulation is also the exact opposite of their seriousness.

Everyone got the article text wrong...

[ichigo 2.0]

It wasn't really a meteorite that hit northern Norway, it was that guys chair. He was quoted as saying "Jeg ska døde Gøøgle!" before putting on his viking helmet and hurling the chair out his window. According to the article he stated that noones sister was hit by the chair while carving her name in a rock.

I am a dumb n00b

[Anonymous Coward]

Would someone more clueful than I am please help me? I googled but turned up zero hits for "Meteørite hits kan be pretti nasti" and fared pretty poorly when translating that into proper English.

What's the cultural reference I missed?

Re:I am a dumb n00b

[Anonymous Coward]

Google "møøse bites".

The Witness

[Frightening]

After climbing a little higher, he found a large, glowing piece of rock. He walked around it, astonished, and from one angle you could see an unmistakable engraving on the side.

LEAVE THE PIRATES ALONE

Re:The Witness

[Anonymous Coward]

After climbing a little higher, he found a large, glowing piece of rock. He walked around it, astonished, and from one angle you could see an unmistakable engraving on the side.

Norway, not Sweden.

Re:The Witness

[Frightening]

Dazzled, he walked onwards, only to find another large chunk of meteorite not far from the first. On this one the etchings read:

SORRY. WRONG NUMBER

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Google "møøse bites".

We apologise for the fault in the parent post. Those responsible have been sacked.

(thx, btw)

A wake up call.

[LordoftheLemmings]

I for one hope this will wake up more people to the fact that metorites and near earth objects are a real and present threat to the entire planet. Had this hit a city, millions of people could have died. And thats just from a small meteor. Imagine if one measured in miles had hit the planet. I'm a firm believer that the US should have a manned space program. But I wish the military was more involved in it. Too many people think science is the only thing we can do in space right now and that is far from the truth. We need experience in finding astroids and moveing them if they are a threat to earth. Also I believe that we need enough people living in space so that if the earth is destroyed there will be enough people to continue on without earth.

Re:The lexicological effects of falling down a gra

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

I am a kid that knows the difference between a asteroid, a meteoroid, and a meteorite. I learned it in my introductory astronomy class which I had to take because I needed a science credit and wasn't really smart enough to make it through a real science class. Since I do know this one tiny bit of trivia, it gives me an excuse to compensate for my utter lack of civility and sex by lashing out at otherwise better educated and socially succesful persons.

I evidently have been listening to the environmental distortions and believe that a pig is anything more than future ham.

Thank you for your patience
Hopefully I will grow out of it
Now moderate my useless comments down so the adults and smart kids can talk

Vengence via Steve Jobs

[RogueWarrior65]

See? That's what happens when you piss off Steve Jobs.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[TheoMurpse]

Pi is not a letter in English; it is a symbol representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. We don't write out some Greek guy's name in English documents using π we use the English letter 'p' instead. Similarly, we use the ampersand as a symbol which represents the concept of "and"; one could, however, make the argument that it is included as a holdover of the old-English alphabet: in 1100 CE, the English alphabet included the ampersand after 'z', and, additionally, thorn and a few other letters which may still be seen in Icelandic. Interestingly enough, one of the old English letters which shares a common ancestor with Ø is not allowed on Slashdot, yet the Ø is.

Blob

[gomel]

A witness went up the mountain to where it hit and reported seeing ...

Oh no! I've seen this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094761/

Well, as the saying goes...

[Linuxbeak]

There goes the neighborhood.

Keyhole

[TheSHAD0W]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Google own Keyhole, which commands a few satellites? The sats certainly aren't dedicated to Google Earth, but I'm sure the GE staff can request some tasks.

No, that's where you're wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just wrong - it's not about English dialects. If anything it's about the Nordic languages having different sounds. The pronounciation of 'sir' and 'hurry' are not open to interpretation. It seems to me that the you have a different pronouciation of 'ö' that is nowhere near the Norwegian 'ø' - and since the proper pronounciation of the 'sir' and 'hurry' require the 'ø'-sound you probably don't know much about either language.

Meteorite is a silly word?

[barakn]

The -ite ending has been used extensively in geology to name rocks and minerals. Once meteroids have fallen on the ground it becomes apparent they are rocks and thus deserve an -ite ending, and even the various types of meteorites or the minerals in them have -ite endings: Pallasites, Mesosiderites, Diogenites, Howardites, eucrites, Chondrites, Enstatite, Bronzite, Amphoterite, Olivine-pigeonite, Ataxites, octahedrites, Hexahedrites.... We might as well rename everything and rewrite every geology and astronomy book on the planet.

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[Dahan]

It used to be possible to use Japanese characters on Slashdot, but that was removed for reasons unknown to me.

Next time it should hit an army camp

[tormedhammaren]

Northern Norway means one thing to men between 17 and 30. A wasted year at a stone cold and isolated place, like for instance Reisadalen.

Dear meteorites,

Next time you come to Norway, please destroy Porsangmoen!

Translation

[Ysangkok]

Here is the record meteorite

METEORITE: This shining object was visible over great parts of North Troms and Finnmark Tuesday night.
PHOTO: Peter Bruvold

Seven minutes later it crashed into North Troms

OLE-THOMAS STEIRO ANDERSEN Friday 9th of June, 10:30am
Updated 03:47am

(Dagbladet.no): Reisadalen in North Troms was Tuesday night hit by an astronomic sensation. Short after 02:00am several Tromsø citizens observed heavy light flicker from an object on the night sky. The meteorite moved over the sky and left a trail of smoke before it hit a high barren plateau in Reisadalen in North Troms.

- I saw a flash like the one in a camera, but much more powerful. The object went in a line and down in the horizon, says farmer Peter Bruvold to Dagbladet.no. He guesses that there went about seven minutes before the enormous blast could be heard all over the area.

GROUND ZERO: The map shows the direction of the sound signals observed by NORSAR's station in Karasjok.
Illustration: NORSAR

It was a reasonable powerful blast. The earth shook and the curtains waved. My first thought was that it must have been a dynamite explosion nearby. When I heard the sound of falling stones, I thought it was a avalanche of stones, says Wenche Offerdal to the newspaper Nordlys . She is one of the many Troms citizens who had their houses shaken Tuesday night.

Big pieces of stone have been shaken out of the cliff on the presumed ground zero. Many of the surrounding trees broke right off.

- International attention
The earthquake station in Karasjok registered both seismic and sonic waves from the crash. It is yet to early to say anything about the meteorites dimensions, but from the readings made so far astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard at Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics thinks that the stone could have weighted up to a ton. In that case it is over 10 times as big as the biggest meteorite ever observed in Norway. The old record is from 1904, when a 90 kilo meteorite hit Finnmark.

- This is extremely exciting. You can imagine something this good, but when it happens it is unbelievable says Røed Ødegaard to Dagbladet.no.

- If it is as big as I think it can be, it will not last long before the world's press comes to North-Troms. This will create attention internationally, says Ødegaard.

There has been found 13 meteorites in Norway, last time in Gloppen municipality in Nordfjord in 2001. A meteorite contains stone or nickel and enters the earth's atmosphere with a speed of 100,000 km/h. The stone gets heated by air resistance, and when the surface vapourises, it gets visible as a powerful flashes.

Re: Hiroshima Fatalities

[Perf]

Your number for the deaths from the Hiroshima blast seems a little high. Every years, the Hiroshima numbers seem to creep up. Here is a good evaluation of both sides of the debate. Whether or not you agree with his conclusion, he makes some good points.

http://www.warbirdforum.com/hirodead.htm

Quotes from the site:

"I found figures ranging from 65,000 to 200,000, with the larger figures generally attached to the most recent writings. Astonishingly, there just doesn't seem to be any scholarly study of this subject, but only proclamations by people with a stake in the matter."

"Writing for Air & Space magazine in the 1990s, I discovered to my horror that at least one editor didn't know the difference between a casualty and a fatality."

"Even if that hypothetical 21-year-old, laid to rest in 1998, would have otherwise lived into his eighties or even nineties, can we fairly attribute his death to Little Boy? After all, nobody is counting the American prisoners of war who have died in the past ten years, and calling them fatalities of the Japanese PW system."

Re:Non-ASCII characters?

[chawly]

There is a lot of this going round - especially in Alabama. The good news is that it can be cured. Stay out of Alabama on the first of April - simple.

oh well...

[PookieToo]

sounds like bad karma to me.

Re: mmm...muddy ham.

[Anonymous Coward]

A muddy ham hit my sister once.

"Record" Meteor

[Zygamorph]

For some reason, when I first read this, I thought the RIAA would try to sue someone.

All time record

[Anonymous Coward]

The all time record would probably be the thing that formed the Moon. About the size of Mars by most estimates. Probably liquified the whole dang planet.

Obligatory Python quote

[Cybrex]

This new math of yours is amazing! Tell me again how sheep bladders can be used to prevent earthquakes.