14-Year-Old Boy Smote By Meteorite

eldavojohn writes "Winning the lottery requires incredible luck and one in a million odds. So does getting hit by a falling space rock. A 14-year-old German boy was granted a three-inch scar by the gods. A pea-sized meteorite smote young Gerrit Blank's hand before leaving a foot-sized crater on the road. The boy's account: 'At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road.' Curiously, the rock was magnetic, and tests were done to verify it is extraterrestrial. The Telegraph notes the only other recorded event of a meteorite striking a person was 'in November 1954 when a grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a house, bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.' Space.com lists a few more anomalies and we discussed the probability of these things downing aircraft recently."

Comments

Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Great story to tell your parents after you've burned yourself with the crack pipe.

Re:Points for creativity

[Brian Gordon]

Seems suspicious to me too.

When it hit me it knocked me flying

From a graze on the hand?

I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang

Yeah right. Pain signals travel through nerves at less than 10 feet per second and it takes much, much longer for the brain to recognize something's wrong. But you hear something almost instantaneously.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

There's something about this boy's pea-sized meteorite leaving a one-foot hole in the road that doesn't fit with the 1954 grapefruit-sized fragment that merely bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.

--Newall

Re:Points for creativity

[piojo]

I'm not saying I don't believe it (I'm not sure), but another point for thought is that it should have reached terminal velocity, right? I don't think a pea-sized rock falls fast enough to leave a crater the size of a foot and cause a loud bang.

On the other hand, I don't blame him for an inaccurate accounting of events--most of what we "remember" is actually reconstructions from logic.

Re:Points for creativity

[localman57]

Pain signals travel through nerves at less than 10 feet per second

Can you imagine the early, renaissance-era experimental measurements of this quantity?
"I'm going to need two men. One very tall, the other very short. Without shoes. And I'll need two hammers."

Re:Points for creativity

[jason.sweet]

You're right. Time often seems to compress in stressful situations. However, it seems to me that if the object exerted enough force to create "a foot wide crater in the ground", then it would cause more than a flesh wound.

Re:Points for creativity

[winse]

uhh ... meteors don't necessarily slow down to a terminal velocity. It could happen, but it's not likely. That's why they are so hot.

Re:Points for creativity

[thesandtiger]

If it were simply dropped within the atmosphere with no impetus, yes - it'd hit terminal velocity.

But if it actually came from space, it could have been traveling hellaciously fast, been slowed down somewhat by the atmosphere, but by no means just down to whatever terminal velocity would be.

Think about it this way - if you fire a gun from the top of a building, the bullet would still hit faster than terminal velocity because it had something propelling it. Same for a meteorite.

Re:Points for creativity

[Ornedan]

Different trajectories and velocities relative to Earth.

Re:Points for creativity

[Tuidjy]

Like the high probability that their entered Earth's
atmosphere at a different angle and/or speed?

Re:Points for creativity

[pclminion]

It wasn't pea-sized the whole way down. It was probably quite a bit bigger than that initially (it would have to be to make it all the way to the surface). That's just the size it had been burned down to by the time it reached ground. It must have been moving pretty damn fast.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying I don't believe it (I'm not sure), but another point for thought is that it should have reached terminal velocity, right? I don't think a pea-sized rock falls fast enough to leave a crater the size of a foot and cause a loud bang.

It's a meteorite. That means it didn't fall, it crashed into the earth. And terminal velocity is equally irrelevant. That's why it was a ball of light and red hot.

Re:Points for creativity

[c6gunner]

meteors don't necessarily slow down to a terminal velocity. It could happen, but it's not likely

Unlikely, my ass. The majority of meteorites DO slow to terminal velocity. It's usually only the very large ones which do not.

That's why they are so hot

Except that they're not. That's just a popular myth - meteorites can be either cold or warm to the touch depending on their composition, but they are never hot. Some are even cold enough to form frost on their surface after impact.

Re:Points for creativity

[DJRumpy]

I would imagine that when this object hit flesh, it acted much like a hyper accelerated bullet. It probably went right through him. I would imagine the impact itself is what threw him back.

The timing issue is nothing. People always get a skewed recollection of time in stressful or surprise moments.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

There's something about this boy's pea-sized meteorite leaving a one-foot hole in the road that doesn't fit with the 1954 grapefruit-sized fragment that merely bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.

I understand you have information about the speed of both meteorites?

Re:Points for creativity

[avandesande]

Meteorites much larger than a pea reach terminal velocity before they hit the ground.... it takes a pretty large meteorite to poke a hole through the atmosphere.

Re:Points for creativity

[avandesande]

The final size of the meteorite is related to the starting size (before it hit the atmosphere)

The final size was much to small to have been going that fast.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

If you shoot a gun from the top of a really tall building (or better yet, an airplane) the bullet will slow to terminal velocity due to the drag of the air (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity).

Re:Points for creativity

[modecx]

There exists the possibility a meteor might not decelerate to terminal velocity, if a largish meteorite was at the correct angle and had a high velocity... A fragment of meteor could retain a surprising amount of velocity. Plus, a pea-sized bullet going faster than sound makes a pretty good sonic report on its own, so that may explain the sound. However, even a .30caliber bullet traveling at 3,000 feet/s isn't going to leave a foot wide crater in dirt.

It would have had to be going very, very fast (certainly faster than any man made projectile) to have that kind of energy... It may have been like a small explosion on impact. It would be going so fast, though that he probably wouldn't have seen it. And he wouldn't have felt pain before the explosion (not enough time for the pain signals to reach the brain).

Re:Points for creativity

[theillien]

I think you're getting too caught up in the nature of humans. People tend to elaborate on stories especially when such surprising events occur.

Re:Points for creativity

[jd]

It'd surely be a function of initial size, initial velocity, initial trajectory and initial composition.

The faster the initial velocity, the greater the friction and therefore the greater the temperature in the upper atmosphere and therefore the greater the burn-off.

The shallower the initial trajectory, the more atmosphere the rock would pass through and therefore the greater the total deceleration experienced from friction and the greater the burn-off.

If the rock is porous or otherwise not particularly well held together, the less heat and the less turbulence needed to break the rock apart into smaller fragments.

There are probably other factors I'm not thinking of here, but since these are the factors used in asteroid impact calculators for determining the effects of an impact, as developed by professional astrophysicists, and since there's no obvious reason to exclude any of these for small meteors or meteorites, it seems logical enough to consider them factors for this sort of strike.

It seems reasonable, in this case, to assume the meteor struck the kid tangentially. In that case, the velocity of the strike would be almost immaterial, as it would not be in contact long enough for any significant heat transfer and there would be no significant transfer of momentum or kinetic energy. I suspect, but can't prove, that a direct hit would have had a terminal velocity in at least one other sense.

Re:Points for creativity

[jd]

You just need one very tall man (over 10') or one stretched on the rack to the required height, a hammer and a stopwatch.

Re:Points for creativity

[MadnessASAP]

Absolutly, meteorites get nice and fiery hot in the upper atmosphere while they deaccelerate by several orders of magnitude to a more reasonable velocity (say Mach 10) just like every other object that man sends up into space. You don`t see the space shuttle as a glowing ball of flame when it touches down, you see it as that when it`s still a couple hundred km up and going far faster then you can comprehend.

Re:Points for creativity

[skuzzlebutt]

You've done it now...MeteorBoy will be paying you a visit soon. He's out shopping for tights this very minute.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an episode of Mythbusters where they busted the TV/movie myth that being hit with a bullet actually throws you back from the force of impact. I personally doubt the truthfulness of this story. If something was going fast enough to make a small hole in the ground, the kid should have gotten a lot more than a 3-inch cut. Something traveling that fast would also not "bounce off his hand" before hitting the ground and making a small crater. It would have completely removed his entire hand. Where are the pictures of the scar on his hand? It should be severely burned in addition to the cut. I call BS.

Re:Points for creativity

[bhagwad]

It need not have reached terminal velocity. If the initial speed was high enough and the initial size was large enough to prevent it from burning up in the atmosphere, it could well have been traveling much faster.

If it hit the earth head on instead of being in the same direction, the velocities of the earth and meteor would add up.

Based on estimates, if it was going at > 70 km/s then it will probably not reach TM when it hits the ground, leaving the mentioned crater.

Re:Points for creativity

[mdwh2]

If we're speculating that it might be a fake, what's your explanation for the small point of him actually having the damn meteorite, or at least, one that fooled scientists?

Re:Points for creativity

[miro f]

your experiment does not take into account other time factors such as the processing time for the signal. To be a proper scientific experiment you'd need a short and tall person.

I doubt this 10 feet per second velocity, though. I've stubbed my foot before and it hasn't taken half a second for the pain to register.

Re:Points for creativity

[DragonWriter]

The final size of the meteorite is related to the starting size (before it hit the atmosphere)

And the initial velocity, the composition, and the angle at which it strikes the atmosphere, IIRC.

The final size was much to small to have been going that fast.

A bare assertion is somewhat inadequate to provide a convincing argument for that point, especially given that every source I can find on the internet indicates that most meteorites are of that size, and that most move at the speed suggested (within about a factor of 2).

Re:Points for creativity

[DragonWriter]

It seems reasonable, in this case, to assume the meteor struck the kid tangentially.

The injury suggests that it passed along his hand; had it not been tangential, the injury would have been very different. Essentially, it looks like it was close enough for the heat from the meteorite to cause burns in the ~1 ms it took to pass by his hand on the way to the ground.

I suspect, but can't prove, that a direct hit would have had a terminal velocity in at least one other sense.

I don't know about "can't", but it would at best be rather unethical to attempt a direct test.

Re:Points for creativity

[Matimus]

For control in the experiment you can strike him in the head.

Re:Points for creativity

[geekoid]

You wouldn't even know until you felt it, so it may have take half a second.

It takes 90 millisecond for your brain to register pain in your tongue.

Also:
http://www.hallofhealth.org/sepa/lesson_plans/brain/5th_Gr_Brain_Lesson_2.pdf

Re:Points for creativity

[avandesande]

I can't find a reference but I remember reading that the final weight of the meteorite had to be ~500kg if it was to exceed terminal velocity.

The ballistic coefficient of a round object the size of a pea is extremely poor, even if solid nickel.

Re:Points for creativity

[PachmanP]

Absolutly, meteorites get nice and fiery hot in the upper atmosphere while they deaccelerate by several orders of magnitude to a more reasonable velocity (say Mach 10) just like every other object that man sends up into space. You don`t see the space shuttle as a glowing ball of flame when it touches down, you see it as that when it`s still a couple hundred km up and going far faster then you can comprehend.

Mach 10 is not a reasonable velocity (unless you're in some funky fluid with a really low speed of sound). It's really fast, and stuff gets very hot (melts most everything kind of hot) at that speed. The shuttle doesn't come down as a ball of flame, but it's slowed down to a couple hundred mph kinds of speed, and you don't see anybody rush out to touch the tiles for quite some time.

That all said, I apologize if I missed any sarcasm, but it appeared to me that someone on the internets was wrong, and I have a moral obligation to correct that if I see it.

Re:Points for creativity

[Thinboy00]

That all said, I apologize if I missed any sarcasm, but it appeared to me that someone on the internets was wrong, and I have a moral obligation to correct that if I see it.

Oblig.

Re:Points for creativity

[Thinboy00]

On the contrary, larger meteorites have more momentum and more kinetic energy. Hence more energy needs to be bled off via drag. Also, surface area:volume ratio tends to decrease as objects get larger (mass:volume ratio is density, which is usually fairly large, and pretty consistent given we are usually dealing with large pieces of metal). So larger meteors shouldn't slow to terminal velocity if they're already moving very fast. The question is what the definition of "is^H^H larger" is.

Re:Points for creativity

[jd]

That depends on who you test.

Re:Points for creativity

[catmistake]

nerves transmit their electro-chemical signals sometimes as fast as 100m/s, but I think its always at least 1 m/s

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're speculating that it might be a fake, what's your explanation for the small point of him actually having the damn meteorite, or at least, one that fooled scientists?

Ixnay on the oofpray.

Re:Points for creativity

[bitrex]

The faster the initial velocity, the greater the friction and therefore the greater the temperature in the upper atmosphere and therefore the greater the burn-off.

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I think at hypersonic velocities in the atmosphere the asteroid would be heated more by ram pressure than by friction. Another variable to take into account would be how closely the body is to an ideal black body - the closer it is the more of the radiant energy incident on its surface that will be re-radiated away. This is why the leading edges of the Space Shuttle are black: there's no way those surfaces could withstand the temperatures produced by re-entry without a majority of incident thermal energy being re-radiated away.

Re:Points for creativity

[jonadab]

> I don't think a pea-sized rock falls fast enough

That might depends on how dense it is. Meteorites aren't necessarily silicate. They can potentially be composed of nickel and tungsten and whatnot, which has a somewhat higher terminal velocity.

Also, it's theoretically possible for a meteorite to strike the ground before slowing down to terminal velocity, if it starts out going *really* fast. In such cases, it would be undergoing significant deceleration all the down, due to the atmospheric friction, which incidentally would also create significant heat and, depending on what its composition is, possibly cause significant erosion and/or vaporization of the material. In other words, it might not have been pea-sized when it first entered the atmosphere; that might be what was left of it by the time it hit the surface. This can also explain the flash: it might have been caused not by the part of the meteorite that made it to the ground, but by the part that didn't.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it this way - if you fire a gun from the top of a building, the bullet would still hit faster than terminal velocity because it had something propelling it. Same for a meteorite.

Except for there is no active propulsion in a meteorite?

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

From the top of a building is an awfully short distance. Bullets can indeed slow to terminal velocity given enough air to travel through, IE shooting a gun straight up.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1199/can-a-bullet-fired-into-the-air-kill-someone-when-it-comes-down

Re:Points for creativity

[aqk]

Yeah right. Pain signals travel through nerves at less than 10 feet per second and it takes much, much longer for the brain to recognize something's wrong. But you hear something almost instantaneously.

Com'n, man- this is a subjective observation. And from a 14-yr-old punk (more subjectivism on my part)
"Pea-sized". "Foot in diameter". "feet-per-second". etc etc.
Hey, don't they use the metric system in Germany?
Geez.. Stop carping.

Re:Points for creativity

[MadnessASAP]

It was sarcasm, at least the part about Mach 10 being a "reasonable" speed, I was trying to illustrate the point that before entering the atmosphere objects in space are typically traveling at ludicrously fast speeds and upon reaching the upper atmosphere decelerate very quickly to a much lower speed in comparison but still obscenely fast. Of course this deceleration continues through it's descent till it reaches terminal velocity but not quite so quickly and therefore not quite so impressively.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Meteorites much larger than a pea reach terminal velocity before they hit the ground....

[citation needed]

How comes it there are so many false assumptions about meteorites flying around here in this discussion? Reaching terminal velocity is, as others said, somewhat dependent on the initial speed, which can be quite high when talking about meteorites.

That is, meteorites only reach terminal velocity before hitting the ground if they were not too fast for this to happen. Obviously, in the case described it was way too fast to decelerate to terminal velocity.

it takes a pretty large meteorite to poke a hole through the atmosphere.

Hm? Any-sized meteorites can "poke a hole through the atmosphere". Depending on entry angle, mass and speed they will either disintegrate completely, partly or not at all while poking.

As a side-note: The meteorite in question here was probably not pea-sized. It only became pea-sized in the end after some disintegration.

Why is it so common to bend scientific views as to suit one's own mind?

There is a crater in the street. There is a piece of metal in that crater which was confirmed to come from space. There was an eye-, ear-, and handwitness, and a loud bang (no wonder, given there's a crater). And you talk about this little pea-sized meteorite must have decelerated to terminal velocity? How comes it?

Please, if there's clear evidence contradicting your model of how things are, then your model is false and should be adjusted. Or given up entirely.

Re:Points for creativity

[MindlessAutomata]

He's likely misremembering what happened. Car crash witnesses do it all the time. He's just (unconsciously) assembling the information he has into something that meshes with his expectations and with what he knows happened after the event happened. He was likely blown back by the force of the meteorite's impact with the Earth, not it hitting him, and as you very correctly mention it was too fast for him to perceive of pain then the sound.

Re:Points for creativity

[c6gunner]

Absolutly, meteorites get nice and fiery hot in the upper atmosphere while

No, they don't. Or, at least, most of the meteorite generally doesn't. What actually happens is that the forward surface heats up enough to cause an impressive light show, but most of that energy doesn't travel to the rest of the meteorite, which remains at sub-zero temperatures. If the meteorite is slowed to terminal velocity while it's still fairly high off the ground, even more of that heat can radiate off of it during the rest of the fall so that by the time it reaches the ground it will actually be quite cold to the touch.

It's the same idea with the space-shuttle - the outer surfaces glow, sure, but the crew doesn't get cooked. By the time they reach the ground the outer surfaces are at a much lower temperature. Now, imagine how much lower that temperature would be if the interior of the shuttle was full of frozen matter, as is the case with meteorites.

Re:Points for creativity

[c6gunner]

Oh ... wait ... I think I misread your comment. On the second pass, it appears that you were saying the same thing as I am.

I probably shouldn't post comments while intoxicated.

Re:Points for creativity

[Proofof. Chaos]

Just ask a cook
Its like taking a steak that's frozen solid and throwing it on a BBQ with ten pounds of blazing hot charcoal. One minute on each side, and the outside will almost be burnt. Try to eat it though, and you realize the inside is still raw and cold, probably partially frozen still.

Re:Points for creativity

[Proofof. Chaos]

That's exactly what I don't understand.
A meteor the size of a large caliber bullet blows a 12 inch hole in the ground and is still intact? You'd think it would get pulverized into dust in the process.

Re:Points for creativity

[shentino]

I think the point GP was trying to make was that drag and momentum are opposing forces and it's really a circumstance-depending toss up as to which one will win.

Re:Points for creativity

[dbeachy1]

Terminal velocity was not a factor here. Terminal velocity is reached when air resistance for a falling object matches the rate at which Earth's gravity wants to continue accelerating it. This only occurs for objects that aren't already entering the atmosphere from space at several thousand miles per hour. To put it in simple terms, "Dropping a pea-sized rock from, say, 100,000 feet is completely different from shooting the same pea-sized rock out of huge rail gun at 17,000 mph." To simplify the example further, which makes a bigger hole: a bullet dropped from 1000 feet up or a bullet *fired from a gun* 1000 feet up?

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullets frequently don't come with rockets on their back ends. They are propelled once (kinda like meteors) and from then on are subject to Newton's crazy "outside forces" (gravity, atmospheric resistance, etc.). Again, kinda like meteors. The real questions regarding the "bullet and a building" experiment are the measurements of initial velocity of the bullet, shape, internal design (will the surface area deform as in a hollow point or not? by how much? and what effect will it have on the length and therefore drag of the rest of the object?), mass, height of the building, atmospheric pressure, and probably some other 7th thing that sober people can figure out.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that everybody's an idiot except me, and with all these clogs in the tubes (like the digital movies and the file sharing mp3 radio programs), we simply can't afford the space for you to keep being wrong like this. So please, for the sake of people trying to run their small businesses on the internet, keep your wrong answers to yourself. You're screwing up the American Dream.

Re:Points for creativity

[JLF65]

There is a POTHOLE in the street. There is a piece of metal someone CLAIMS to have found there, but could have easily be found elsewhere or purchased from a local rock collector (or online). There is a "witness" whose story makes no logical sense to anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence.

Now who's bending scientific views to suit there own mind?

Re:Points for creativity

[JLF65]

I can buy meteorites from a half dozen shops within twenty miles of my house. If I know what to look for (and I do), I can FIND a meteorite within 20 miles of my house within a week's time. Having a meteorite proves nothing.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

There is some news flashing on the INTERNETS. Everybody at Slashdot is DISCUSSING it. There are CLAIMS of scientific truth and bending.

Now, who's bending scientific views to suit there own mind?

All that set aside, you didn't contribute to the false assumption that "small" (i. e., pea-sized) meteorites necessarily reach terminal velocity before hitting the ground.

Apart from that, your usage of the term "logical", or "intelligence", for that matter, needs some clarification, since what the witness said makes perfect logical sense. Especially since it didn't contain much concerning the field of logic, because it stated observations, not logical implications.

Please, contribute with a scientific denial or affirmation of the stated observations instead of random ranting.

Re:Points for creativity

[miro f]

I can tell things have happened to me with my eyes, and that happens at light speed!

Re:Points for creativity

[Joebert]

Great story to tell your parents after you've burned yourself with the crack pipe.

Unless it's the hand you masturbate with and your parents are religious freaks.

"We tried to warn you Bobby, God doesn't like it when you touch yourself."

Re:Points for creativity

[clone53421]

Sure, but haven't you ever said "ow" and then realised you weren't hurt?

You thought you were in pain because you decided you should be. If there was pain, you still didn't actually feel it until a moment later, and it verified your conclusion, which made the rapid "assumption... verification" a completely unconscious process.

On a similar note, you can react to the pain before your brain even knows of it – even before the pain signal reaches the brain: (which can fool you into thinking that you knew about it before you actually did – if you reacted, you knew about it, right? ... wrong.)

In higher animals, most sensory neurons do not pass directly into the brain, but synapse in the spinal cord. This characteristic allows reflex actions to occur relatively quickly by activating spinal motor neurons without the delay of routing signals through the brain, although the brain will receive sensory input while the reflex action occurs. The main source of the reflex action is through the bottom muscles.

Re:Points for creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the American Meteor Society website (www.amsmeteors.org):

    Can a meteorite dropping fireball be observed all the way to impact with the ground?

No. At some point, usually between 15 to 20 km (9-12 miles or 48,000-63,000 feet) altitude, the meteoroid remnants will decelerate to the point that the ablation process stops, and visible light is no longer generated. This occurs at a speed of about 2-4 km/sec (4500-9000 mph). From that point onward, the stones will rapidly decelerate further until they are falling at their terminal velocity, which will generally be somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2 km/sec (200 mph to 400 mph). Moving at these rapid speeds, the meteorite(s) will be essentially invisible during this final "dark flight" portion of their fall.

    Are meteorites "glowing" hot when they reach the ground?

Probably not. The ablation process, which occurs over the majority of the meteorite's path, is a very efficient heat removal method, and was effectively copied for use during the early manned space flights for re-entry into the atmosphere. During the final free-fall portion of their flight, meteorites undergo very little frictional heating, and probably reach the ground at only slightly above ambient temperature.

This "event" is so obviously a hoax!

Re:Points for creativity

[miro f]

I suggest an experiment involving two hammers and a very tall person.

Re:Points for creativity

[clone53421]

Use a blindfold so he can't see it.

Also, why do you need two hammers? I'd think you'd need one hammer and a stopwatch.

What's this picture for?

[GigaHurtsMyRobot]

Why not a picture of his hand?

Re:What's this picture for?

[keenanvito]

It looks like it might have had his hand in the picture, but 'someone' cropped it out.

Re:What's this picture for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/5513461/Pictures-of-the-day-12-June-2009.html

Re:What's this picture for?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's the scar supposedly left by the meteorite faintly visible on his left hand, I'm at a loss as to how it could have ended up at that angle.

Re:What's this picture for?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it left a foot-sized crater in the pavement but nothing awesome at all happened to his hand?

Re:What's this picture for?

[Yvan256]

Maybe it only flew close to his hand and never touched it at all. He got burned by the speed/air/whatever, not the rock itself. But it could've felt like a hit because of the sheer speed.

Re:What's this picture for?

[JWSmythe]

People are soft, squishy things that don't tend to shatter, except for the occasional hard bits inside. :) It would have been more like a 9mm gunshot wound (rough guess from the object in the picture). A bullet going straight through is going to leave a pretty small wound, while a bullet hitting a brick wall will leave a mark. Since bullets are lead, or copper jacketed lead, they squish more, and aren't traveling much over the speed of sound (depending on the load, caliber, and weapon). I'd guess this object was pretty hard, probably a piece of unobtainium from from an transdimensional intergalactic spacecraft. As a mental note, for those taking a spin in a transdimensional intergalactic spacecraft, make sure all the parts are properly secured. :) When traveling at c*12 before you do a dimensional slip to avoid a planetary body, it's always important to bring all your pieces with you.

    Seriously though, since it wouldn't have (or obviously didn't) deform when striking him, it made a small entrance and exit wound, and hit the ground pretty hard. I don't quite get the 3" scar, unless it was at a really weird angle or the scar was from surgery when they were repairing the damage caused by it. I would expect it to be well over supersonic speeds just because of it's initial velocity. I don't know where they're getting the 30,000 mph from. It's probably forceably extracted from their rectum. I'm sure it had a tremendous entry velocity, since there's no way to guess at what forces had acted upon it prior to entering the atmosphere.

    Here's some good pictures of two entrance and one exit wound from an accidental shooting with a .45 jacketed hollow point. (in the thigh, out the thigh, in the calf). And no, it's not me or anyone I know. I was just looking for pictures of entrance and exit wounds from firearms.

Re:What's this picture for?

[jd]

Possible, but if the hand was flat and the meteor struck at a tangent, it would also cause gravel burn and not much more.

Also possible is that the meteor had partially disintegrated a little further up and he was grazed by a tiny flake (basically an amalgam of your theory and mine).

A direct strike seems very unlikely. The scar is too long, for a start. The hand would be incapable of either deflecting the meteor OR moving fast enough out of the way.

Re:What's this picture for?

[svnt]

I don't want to tear into the kid, but the close up of his hand in this article really looks like the eraser burns that kids occasionally give themselves in middle school.

My guess is that he saw the meteor hit and thought it would be really cool to say it bounced off him. Then, using a trick he learned from his friends, presto - instant burn mark.

Re:What's this picture for?

[dotgain]

looks like the eraser burns that kids occasionally give themselves in middle school.

Wow, that's the first time I've heard anyone call it 'eraser' burn! If you really got yours from actual erasers you're doing it wrong.

Re:What's this picture for?

[sjames]

Clearly it grazed his hand and so transferred comparatively little energy but then hit the pavement head on.

Re:What's this picture for?

[cj51]

How do they know meteorite velocity was 30k mph? How do they know meteorite was pee size? Is the kid holding the meteor in his hand in that picture? Why wasn't the meteorite pulverized when it hit the road? Why doesn't article have picture of the hole in the road? Anyway, 30k mph is 44k feet/sec. Lets say distance from hand to road was 4 ft (to make math easy) so dt between hitting hand and impact road is 9.09..e-5 seconds. And this kid could perceive that time difference? fishy story.

Re:What's this picture for?

[symbolic]

This would make sense - anything moving fast enough to create a 1-foot crater is probably going to take a hand (or at least part of it) right along with it.

Re:What's this picture for?

[arthurp]

He would have been hit by the super sonic shock wave it produced wouldn't he? It wouldn't have much mass, but it would carry a sh*t load of energy.

Re:What's this picture for?

[Anonymous Coward]

This other photo has much better colors:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1192503/Close-encounter-rock-kind-Schoolboy-survives-direct-hit-meteorite-travelling-30-000mph.html

(Different photo taken at the same place in similar position. And with a sensationalistic headline to boot. Also includes a closeup of the hands.)

Re:What's this picture for?

[aviators99]

Maybe it only flew close to his hand and never touched it at all. He got burned by the speed/air/whatever, not the rock itself. But it could've felt like a hit because of the sheer speed.

How about a piece of the ground from the giant crater? It would be impossible for him (or anyone) to tell if he was hit before or after the crater was created.

Re:What's this picture for?

[Delkster]

From that link:

Gerrit Blank, 14, was rushing to school when he saw a massive fireball heading straight towards him from the sky.

That must be one of the better excuses I've heard for being late for school.

ouch

[JackSpratts]

wouldn't want one of those going up you know where while snoozing at the beach. no siree.

Re:ouch

[Arthur Grumbine]

wouldn't want one of those going up you know where while snoozing at the beach. no siree.

You are aware that meteorites come from space, right? So unless you're in the habit of snoozing with your body angled such that your head is at a lower elevation than your feet/ass, I'm pretty certain there would be anything 'going up' anywhere.

Re:ouch

[clone53421]

He could have meant up his nose, you know.

Today...

[Joe Snipe]

FML.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

quote

[Toonol]

"The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million - but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand."

Wow, there was a 99.9999% of it killing him!

Seriously, surely the odds of being struck are much smaller than one in a million? Isn't it closer to one in a few billion, since there's a population of 6 billion and only 2 occurrences?

Re:quote

[localman57]

This reminds me of an arguement I had with a co-worker about extra-terrestrial life a few years back.
Him: Do you know how much stuff would have to be just right for that to happen? It'd be like hitting the lottery.
Me: People hit the lottery every week.
Checkmate.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

More like touche, really.

Re:quote

[Petrini]

I interpreted that sentence to mean there is only one chance in a million of surviving being hit by a meteorite, not that the chance of being hit at all was so small. I would guess the odds of being struck at any second are far less than one in a million, or we'd be splattered all over the place. Similarly, it seems like the odds of surviving are much higher than one in a million, unless, in addition to our two survivors, there are 1,999,998 smoten people we haven't heard much about.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it closer to one in a few billion, since there's a population of 6 billion and only 2 occurrences?

I'm not good with statistics, but since it was 2 people, over a period of 55 years, wouldn't it be higher than 1:3 billion?

Re:quote

[ceoyoyo]

Considerably less than that. There have been no reported hits since the '50s. There were fewer people back then, but still more than a billion. So the per year chance of being hit by a meteorite must be more like 1 in a few hundred billion.

Re:quote

[Golddess]

I am not a statistician, but isn't it a little more difficult than simply counting the current population size and dividing that by the total number of occurrences? I mean, shouldn't we also factor in everyone who lived between 1954 and now (for the sake of argument, lets say time began with the first strike), and also somehow factor in time since many of those people may be dead today and thus should not count as being hit by a space object?

Two instances of such an event in less than 60 years does not automatically invalidate the thousands of years prior where such an event had not occurred.

Re:quote

[dodobh]

However, it is a well known fact that one in a million chances happen 9 times out of 10.

Re:quote

[dwiget001]

Or, just plain old "SCORE!"

Re:quote

[onefriedrice]

Of course, your checkmate preyed more on your co-worker's gross under-exaggeration rather than his real argument.

Re:quote

[geekoid]

1 out of a million chances happen 9 out of 10 times.
- Terry Pratchett.

Re:quote

[anglico]

this is slashdot not many know how to SCORE!

Re:quote

[Duradin]

The real trick is getting exactly 1 out of a million odds.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you count his uniqueness as a member of society. If you're counting the actual odds of a meteorite entering the atmosphere and hitting a person, surely the odds are incredibly low. Most don't even reach the ground!

Re:quote

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I always preferred, "Oh no he dedn't". You can't see my finger wagging but it's there.

Re:quote

[Yvan256]

"If we can hit that bulls-eye then all the dominoes will fall like a house of cards, checkmate!" --Zapp Brannigan

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

the chance of (intelligent?) life occurring twice in our universe is very small, like the chances of any one person winning the lottery

Number of people in my state: about 6 million.
Estimated number of stars in the known universe: about 70,000 million million million.
(7x10^22)

People win the lottery every week. If the chance of finding intelligent life was similar to the chance of winning the lottery, we should expect to find about 10,000,000,000,000 stars with intelligent life per week.

Re:quote

[Nikker]

It looks like these 'News Jockeys' are still stuck in this mentality from the early 1900's where a million of anything was a fascinating concept. This 'stat' seems to infer that with each asteroid that makes it past the atmosphere there is a 1 in 1 mil chance of it hitting a person. That would mean that each asteroid would definitely hit someone somewhere, and that just isn't happening. So I guess we chalk it up to "lies, dammed lies, and statistics".

Re:quote

[SnarfQuest]

You need to check up on the DiskWorld series about million to one chances.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be actually a calculation based on the number of points in space the meteorites occupied in the given period, times the chance of a human occupying that same space at the exact same point in time.

Most of the earth's surface is uninhabited, so the chance will be astronomically small.

Re:quote

[eddy the lip]

It doesn't matter how many people there are. It's how many meteors reach the earth's surface, the total surface area of our little globe, and how much space on it you take up.

More people just means a higher chance that _someone_ will get hit. Doesn't affect your chances at all. Unless meteors are actively looking for someone to strike.

Re:quote

[sulliwan]

Being directly struck, yes, the odds are considerably lower than one in a million. However, chances of being killed as a result of a bolide impact are significantly higher, since when a really big one hits, the deathtoll can be in the millions or even billions.

Re:quote

[tenco]

The Drake equation is exact, but we have no idea how large a few of the factors are, so the true probability is anyone's guess, really.

How can it be exact, then? Do you really think that mathematical models of physical reality can be exact?

Re:quote

[Lord Ender]

You have to take into account the occasional earth-killer meteor. It skews the stats quite a bit.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

The co-worker didn't say that the average probability of finding intelligent life in any one star system is equal to the probability of any one person winning the lotto. That's just some totally arbitrary interpretation that you have added to his statement. He merely said that the odds were like the lottery. He almost certainly meant that even considering the number of stars, chances are still remote.

Re:quote

[dwiget001]

Oh, yeah, sorry.

** Grabs his trusty "geek mentality and social stigmatization program" CD and installs **

Ah, that's better.

What is this "SCORE!" thing anyway?...

You mean, with like a real live girl?!?!? That would rule!

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Off the top of my head I can think of at least a few more things what would need to be considered than the worlds population and the number of previous documented incidents. Among them are:

-The likelihood of a meteorite actually reaching ground level intact. (Most meteorites burn up in the atmosphere if I'm not mistaken.)
-The sheer number of possible strike locations. (Most people live on land, not at sea and the majority of the earth is covered by water.)
-Time of day. (Fewer people are out of doors during the night.)
-The period of time in which we're predicting the chances of an occurrence for.

Maybe a real statistician can tell me if I'm off to a good start.

Re:quote

[Dragonslicer]

What is this "SCORE!" thing anyway?...

You mean, with like a real live girl?!?!? That would rule!

Or in a sport of some kind.

Oh yeah, never mind.

Re:quote

[Dragonslicer]

You need to check up on the DiskWorld series about million to one chances.

Is it anything like the Discworld series?

</pedantic-asshole>

Re:quote

[CecilPL]

Only in movies, and that's because they don't usually make movies about the one-in-a-million things that didn't happen.

Re:quote

[SBrach]

"If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!" -Zap Brannigan

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a big bag of colored shapes. I want to know how many red squares are in the bag. Here's an exact equation for that quantity:

N = T*S*R

N is the number of red squares in the bag
T is the total number of shapes in the bag
S is the fraction of the shapes that are squares (or, if you prefer, the probability of drawing a square of any color)
R is the fraction of the squares that are red (or, given that the shape drawn is a square, the probability of drawing a red square)

To the degree that T, S, and R are uncertain, N is uncertain. But the equation itself is exact.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Read his comment again. He's obviously comparing the probability of intelligent life evolving (on any certain planet) to the probability of hitting the lotto.

Do you know how much stuff would have to be just right for that to happen? It'd be like hitting the lottery.

Re:quote

[jbsouthe]

Seriously, surely the odds of being struck are much smaller than one in a million? Isn't it closer to one in a few billion, since there's a population of 6 billion and only 2 occurrences?

well the only other time it happened, in recorded history was 1954, how many people were on the planet then?

Re:quote

[SpecBear]

"Critical hit", perhaps?

Re:quote

[0xdeadbeef]

Of course, your checkmate preyed more on your co-worker's gross under-exaggeration rather than his real argument.

Yeah, seriously. Less than four hundred planets are known to exist, and at least one has life. I've met thousands of people, and none of them have won the lottery. Obviously life is more common.

Re:quote

[Hurricane78]

You mean like Counterstrike?

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realise that one of the biggest factors in the Drake equation is the number of stars in the galaxy? That's what he's talking about.

It's also why he's insightful and you're not.

Re:quote

[Hurricane78]

What's with that retarded "million million million. because you can't possibly comprehend what a sextillion is" attitude? And besides: When you got the chance to use the best prefix ever, you blow it like this??

If you wanted something we all here can relate to, you could have at least said that there are 70 zettastars. Which is coming right after exastars, which is coming after petastars. Everyone knows how to relate to that. And in some years, we will all have at least one byte per star in the known universe on our hard disks. ;)

Re:quote

[0xdeadbeef]

The Drake equation is exact, but we have no idea how large a few of the factors are, so the true probability is anyone's guess, really. Your co-worker is guilty of guessing, but you and the people who have modded you up are guilty of being morons.

*snicker*

Re:quote

[geekoid]

Try shooting off hand, with one eye closed and standing on one leg.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a decent handle on some of the factors in the Drake equation, but we know practically nothing about others. Mashing several together, the average probability of intelligent life originating on a planet capable of supporting it could be in 0.9999 or it could be 1 in 10^30. Waving a big number around doesn't prove anything, and it isn't insightful, either.

Re:quote

[mdwh2]

No, there's no way we can conclude that. Especially given that all we have is the OP's paraphrasing.

The correct response is to say that no one has any clue as to the probability anyway (and there is no reason to think it comparable to a single person winning the lottery). But have fun making up a straw man, if you think it makes you look clever to show you are aware of some trivial mathematical knowledge.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean if you are a fat ass in your mom's basement your chance goes up? I mean your fat....

Re:quote

[E IS mC(Square)]

>> Maybe a real statistician can tell me if I'm off to a good start.

Yes, and if you continue this way, you will never arrive at 42. Your loss!

Re:quote

[Chyeld]

"BOOM! Headshot!" would seem more appropriate. Handshot... well that just seems wrong.

Re:quote

[mdwh2]

Do you realise that one of the biggest factors in the Drake equation is the number of stars in the galaxy?

Exactly - the number of stars is taken into account, which is why the OP was misleading to think he could then factor in the number of stars again to make the probability of life seem almost certain.

It's also why he's insightful and you're not.

Argument ad populum - where in this case, the "populum" is a whole one person who appears to have moderated him Insightful (the rest where Funny - yes, it was certainly funny as a joke, but there's no need to jump on it trying to make yourself look clever, when everyone here is well aware of the trivial mathematical point that you are trying to show off about).

Re:quote

[mdwh2]

He said "since there's a population of 6 billion and only 2 occurrences?" - i.e., the population matters, because he's also using the information we have about the number of people who have been hit. But yes, yours would be another way of working it out (though you'd have to account for the amount of time spent outdoors).

Re:quote

[TBoon]

And in china, if you're one in a million, there is a thousand people just like yo.

Re:quote

[mcvos]

Do you realise that one of the biggest factors in the Drake equation is the number of stars in the galaxy?

Exactly - the number of stars is taken into account, which is why the OP was misleading to think he could then factor in the number of stars again to make the probability of life seem almost certain.

What do you mean "again"? You sound like you know the outcome of the Drake equation. If you do, please share, because lots of scientists would love to know.

According to a lot of guesstimates, the outcome of Drake's equation is actually rather large, so that's not the "chance of winning the lottery" that you're looking for. The chance of one particular planet having all the right properties for life is.

It's also why he's insightful and you're not.

Argument ad populum - where in this case, the "populum" is a whole one person who appears to have moderated him Insightful

The fact that only one person modded him insightful doesn't automatically mean he's not insightful. And I'm claiming he is -- moreso than that first AC, at least -- and your spurious logic doesn't really work as a refutation.

Re:quote

[dotgain]

IANARS anyway, but to take issue with your points in order:

1. That's implicit in the measurement of previous strikes. If we already know how many make it to the ground in a given time period, the amount that break up in the atmosphere and don't make it is irrelevant.
2. Wouldn't matter - assuming a uniform distribution of strikes across the planet (which probably isn't correct, but that's not the point here), your chances would not vary no matter where you went (ignoring buildings, where the strength of the roof would complicate the equation).
3. You're talking about the protection afforded by a roof over one's head. I guess you could attempt to average the amount of time people spend outside, and assume that any roof will withstand any meteor strike (or factor roof quality in, complicating things even further). You do raise a good point, and it's beyond me to elaborate further.
4. Should be implicit in the question. We're either interested in the probability being hit over a time period of the average life expectancy, or some arbitrary period, like 1 in x billion per year per capita. Without specifying a timeframe the question would be void. e.g. "What's the chances of winning (a given) lottery?". It would depend on whether you only play it exactly once, or whether you played it x number of times.

   Risking being hit by a meteor is analogous buying a lottery ticket with an extreme probability of not-winning for every second of your life. I say analogous, because I over-simplify the 'every second' bit. An extremely unfortunate person could be hit by two different meteorites in the same second.

   But then, someone so unlucky would already have been killed by something else, right ;)

   Again, not claiming any sort of authority here, maybe someone who IARS will be along soon to hand me my shiny metal ass on a plate, just engaging your point.

Re:quote

[dotgain]

Reply-to-self-shame, etc.

Further to point 4, because the average life expectancy varies from country to country, an African would have less of a chance of being hit than a European, by virtue of 'buying fewer tickets in the lottery'. This illustrates how the question could be refined further still, depending on how you want to mislead your audience (this is statistics, after all!).

Re:quote

[dotgain]

But haven't the 'really big ones' hit so infrequently as to be negligible in the bigger picture?

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

I read this not as his chances of being struck, but his chances of survival assuming he was hit. It's ambiguous that way.

Re:quote

[Barny]

Hrmm, accidental Pratchett quote or did you just finish reading Guards! Guards! as well :)

Re:quote

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Using the lottery as an example isn't all that bad an idea. Except it's not everyone on Earth playing. Earth just buys one ticket every few million years, and you need to win the mega jackpot to get anything. And humanity hasn't been around to check the numbers very long. We could win that lottery, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be the same odds as a commodore 64 running as a webserver on the internet.

Re:quote

[ushering05401]

Screw the one byte per star thing... I want my random numbers mined from cosmic background radiation, and my network time servers synchronized by pulsar.

Carry on.

Re:quote

[dodobh]

Not accidental. I have read the entire Discworld series multiple times. Oook!

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

YAY Terry Pratchet!

Re:quote

[Barny]

Hehe, I am just getting my teeth into Moving Pictures.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I was actually thinking that since it's a ratio you can drop the last "million" and compare "6" with "70,000 million million" directly. I did also give the figure in scientific notation...

And in some years, we will all have at least one byte per star in the known universe on our hard disks. ;)

An 8-bit universe... ahh, the memories!

Re:quote

[clone53421]

I had an instructor who called those sort of factors "fudge factors", and yeah, throw in enough of them and any equation is "exact".

Re:quote

[clone53421]

Actually, there was this one where Miley Cyrus had a one-in-a-million chance of being permanently unable to sing, and it never happened.

Darn.

Re:quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Rimshot!

movie

[Anonymous Coward]

does that mean this kid will become stinking rich with movie royalties?

God is....

[Anonymous Coward]

God is back... and he's pissed.

Re:God is....

[SanityInAnarchy]

...and that meteorite is the best he can do?

I would've expected a press conference, at least...

Re:God is....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was specifically upset with what that boy was doing with his had at night ...

Re:God is....

[Anonymous Coward]

you fail!!!!! it is spelled H-A-N-D

Re:God is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I'm a serious grammar Nazi, and even I'M not that much of a dick.

Re:God is....

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that going to make randy, like Zeus?

Getting smacked around by space rocks?

[Cathbadh]

Clearly, this kid is all set to gain numerous super-powers from his encounter.

Re:Getting smacked around by space rocks?

[igny]

He already had superpowers, given that the meteorite travelling at some 40km/s bounced off his hand before making a huge hole in the ground. Not forgetting the boy actually survived.

Re:Getting smacked around by space rocks?

[snowraver1]

I would expect a huge gaping hole where his hand used to be. Possibly the meteor missed him entirely hit the ground near him, and some of the debris from the impact with the earth hit his hand.

Re:Getting smacked around by space rocks?

[mcvos]

Huge hole? It was a foot. Although they didn't mention whether the ground was concrete or loose sand, and I have no idea how fast it'd have to go and at what angle to make a crater that's 30 cm in one dimension.

Also, my guess is that it was the hand that was bounced out of the way, rather than the other way around. He said it did send him flying, right? My guess is it was mostly his hand that was send flying. If it's a graze, I don't think it necessarily has to tear his hand off.

skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

the oldest article on google news is from 16 hours ago, and is from the Sun. How reputable a source is this? When did this happen? I wanted to go tell everyone how interesting this was-- now I am unsure of for what reason is it interesting

Re:skeptical

[RobertB-DC]

I'm getting a little worried about the story's veracity, too. Just the first two paragraphs have a couple of big issues:

Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky.

A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.

Your average space rock is hurtling through space at ridiculous speeds, and hits the atmosphere hard. Its outer layers burn off... until it slows down to the normal terminal velocity for a rock. At that point, all the hot stuff has sprayed off into the air.

So anything hitting the ground will be 1) not glowing (the glowing part is long over) and 2) not hot (in fact, it should be covered in frost).

I call shenanigans. Show me I'm wrong. There's a first time for everything, after all. :)

Re:skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

it should be covered in frost

How the fuck does stupidity of this level get modded up?

Re:skeptical

[Red Flayer]

So anything hitting the ground will be 1) not glowing (the glowing part is long over) and 2) not hot (in fact, it should be covered in frost).

Well, the "meteorite" was magnetic, which implies either a high iron content or a high nickel content. Either one is shiny. Surely the sun reflecting off the "meteorite" could explain the "streak of light".

Seriousoy, though... can you please do the calculation that proves for a meteor of some diameter N, and some density M, it is impossible for the meteor to enter the atmosphere at some speed O, at an angle P, that would result in the meteorite not being cool to the touch at elevation Q? Please account for atmospheric and local weather conditions. Or, you could link to a source with the required info.

See, here's the thing... most meteors enter the atmosphere obliquely, which results in a long path of travel before touchdown (if they don't burn up completely). But just assume that it's possible for a meteor to not hit obliquiely (and factoring in rotation, etc)... surely it is possible for a meteor of sufficient density and size to be traveling at higher than terminal velocity, and above normal temperature, when it hits the surface (or a teen standing on the surface).

Re:skeptical

[RobertB-DC]

How the [File System Check] does stupidity of this level get modded up?

As much as I hate replying (twice!) to AC's, I feel compelled to go to the trouble of a Google search.

Meteorite Myths (cribbed in turn from space.com, apparently)
"All of these things together mean that not only is the rock not hot when it hits the ground, it can actually be very cold. Some meteorites (what a meteoroid is called after it impacts) have actually been found covered in frost!"

Re:skeptical

[RobertB-DC]

See, here's the thing... most meteors enter the atmosphere obliquely, which results in a long path of travel before touchdown (if they don't burn up completely). But just assume that it's possible for a meteor to not hit obliquiely (and factoring in rotation, etc)... surely it is possible for a meteor of sufficient density and size to be traveling at higher than terminal velocity, and above normal temperature, when it hits the surface (or a teen standing on the surface).

You're absolutely right... it's *possible*. But is it probable?

The odds of a person being directly struck are one in billions -- impossible to even calculate, since it's never happened until maybe now (the lady in Alabama got hit on the rebound).

The odds of a meteorite hitting at precisely the right angle (a right angle, in fact) so that it drops out of the sky with minimum atmospheric friction, while not nearly as spectacular, are notable.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that both these things could happen together. But it's certainly not the simplest possiblity. The simplest possibility is that the kid was doing *something* he shouldn't have been, and came up with the Awesomest Story Ever to cover it up. I know that's what my son does.

Re:skeptical

[EvilBudMan]

I had asteroids once. I wasn't fun.

Re:skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an interesting read, and i'm glad you posted it.
No, i'm not the two ac's above, i'm just too lazy to log in.

Re:skeptical

[Opportunist]

Well, he used the "my dog ate it" excuse already yesterday...

Re:skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

His story might not be *true*, but.. um.. there's still the crater in the ground. I don't know how he would have been able to fake that. And the rock is reportedly actually from space. Even harder to fake. The odds of him just happening to find this while doing something he shouldn't have been that caused a scar, and deciding to blame it on this meteorite, are probably as small as him getting hit by it.

Re:skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

"All of these things together mean that not only is the rock not hot when it hits the ground, it can actually be very cold. Some meteorites (what a meteoroid is called after it impacts) have actually been found covered in frost!"

You realise that "can" is not the same as "should", right?

Re:skeptical

[OS24Ever]

i'm completely skeptical the meteor hit him before hitting the ground. I'd me more inclined to agree he got nailed by something flying back at him that was hot. Wouldn't the kinetic energy transfer into the ground heat it up enough to burn the skin slightly as it hit you? I would think he'd lose that hand if not his life if he got hit by a rock that was going fast enough/had enough mass to drive a crater like that after striking him first

i know i've watched a ton of movies and my view of physics has been warped since I was in school but it just doesn't seem possible to be physically hit by something, and the energy not transferring to you, and still have enough to punch that kind of hole in the ground.

Queue the jokes

[plopez]

About self-gratification. This is /. after all. ;)

Re:Queue the jokes

[exley]

Scanning through the comments I don't see a single one along those lines, but I do see a ton of them about the kid having superpowers now. Now that's Slashdot :) Or maybe everyone was just too busy jerkin' it to be bothered to make comments.

Re:Queue the jokes

[plopez]

or maybe I'm just the only ID10T

Re:Queue the jokes

[Dragonslicer]

Queue the jokes... About self-gratification. This is /. after all. ;)

Why, do you think there will be enough of them that we need to form a orderly line for them?

yikes

[spidercoz]

the gods or whatever clearly hate this kid, maybe we should take the hint and finish him off

Re:yikes

[Anonymous Coward]

The gods couldn't take him out, so what chance do we have?

Re:yikes

[genner]

the gods or whatever clearly hate this kid, maybe we should take the hint and finish him off

He survived geting hit ny a meteor.
He's too powerful for us.

Re:yikes

[hansamurai]

Similar Final Destination moment:

Woman who missed the downed Air France flight dies in a car crash

Re:yikes

[EdIII]

He's too powerful for us.

That's why we need a team of people to watch him for several months to determine his weaknesses. Obviously we need to find the best and the brightest and should look to the comic book shops for recruitment.

Re:yikes

[billius]

Of course, it's the only way to ensure a good harvest!

Re:yikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, he's only german. If the entire world teams up on him we -might- have a chance.

Re:yikes

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

No. We need The Killer.

Re:yikes

[amoeba1911]

I, for one, welcome our new 14 year old overlord.

Re:yikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the kid was smart enough to have eaten a meteorite corpse and thus gained intrinsic meteorite resistance!

Also, am I the only one who heard a voice booming from the sky saying "I believe it not!"?

Re:yikes

[WoRLoKKeD]

I agree. Hit by a meteorite, late for school AND ginger?

What is more...

[a whoabot]

What is more amazing is that it struck a 14-year-old German. I didn't think these things existed anymore; I thought all Germans were over 40 by now.

Re:What is more...

[geekoid]

Clones.

Re:What is more...

[clone53421]

What?

Re:What is more...

[geekoid]

Not you, I was talking to number 12392

Re:What is more...

[clone53421]

Him? He died in a freak meteor accident.

Re:What is more...

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a very Dutch sounding name. Perhaps he moved there from the Netherlands.

Re:What is more...

[geekoid]

How was I to know? All you clones look the same to me.

Re:What is more...

[Alsee]

Yeah yeah yeah.... 'you all look alike to me'.
Damn bigot.

-

Re:What is more...

[ignavus]

What is more amazing is that it struck a 14-year-old German. I didn't think these things existed anymore; I thought all Germans were over 40 by now.

Maybe he is a 41-year-old dyslexic German.

Re:What is more...

[clone53421]

Don't be so hard on him. Even I can't tell the difference between myself and number 12435, and I see him every day. It's the strangest thing, they've printed his digits backward, though...

Count me a skeptic

[pease1]

No photos of any wound, but fast enough to bury in the ground or leave a foot long mark on the ground? Loud noise? Many small meteors are traveling quite slowly by time they reach the surface. Small meteorites are quite easy to obtain. Apparently this is a photo of the rock. Is that the 3-inch scar? Just dunno...

Re:Count me a skeptic

[SilverJets]

If it was fast enough to leave an impact crater after hitting the ground, it would have shredded that kid's hand. I think it is more likely that the meteor hit the ground and the kid was hit with the stones and dirt that were tossed into the air.

Re:Count me a skeptic

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was traveling at or near it's terminal velocity there wouldn't be enough friction between it and the boy's flesh to transfer the energy needed to "shredded that kid's hand."

Re:Count me a skeptic

[sjames]

It all depends on the angle. If it was traveling roughly parallel to the surface of his hand at the time of contact, it would leave an injury about like what the picture shows.

It's not a matter of how much kinetic energy the meteor has, it's a question of how much it transfers to his hand.

Re:Count me a skeptic

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to hear logic is finally playing out. The news just likes to BIG things up.

Re:Count me a skeptic

[Daemonax]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/5513461/Pictures-of-the-day-12-June-2009.html
There you go.

ein minuten bitte

[spidercoz]

FTA: "A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground."

First, meteors aren't hot. Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug. Was the kid's hand blown off? No? Then it didn't leave a fucking crater in the ground either. How about some photographs? Oh, there are none? Hmmm.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[IlluminatedOne]

This was my first thought too (well, the first one was about how lazy the 'odds are 1 in a million' comment was). Rock @ 30K mph > human flesh/sinew/bone. Pics or it didn't happen...

Re:ein minuten bitte

[forkazoo]

First, meteors aren't hot. Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug. Was the kid's hand blown off? No? Then it didn't leave a fucking crater in the ground either. How about some photographs? Oh, there are none? Hmmm.

The only way I can read this is that "foot wide crater" must mean something more like "hit a pile of dust and pebbles, and scattered things as far as a foot." Then it starts to make more sense. Still, AFAICT, this claim is unproven. Which means that jumping through hoops in the reading may not be worth the effort.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[gubers33]

Did you really just say meteors aren't hot? They burn up in our atmosphere how wouldn't they be hot. Heat is cause when anything enters the atmosphere at high speeds it is the same reason that all space crafts have special heat resistant tiles on their underbodies for when they reenter the atmosphere.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[CheshireCatCO]

Yes, they're not hot. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/meteoric.html

Be careful using that bold.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[gubers33]

Yes it is true that some burn off all of the layers and become in covered in ice, but some don't. Meteors have been found both still hot and covered in ice. and I hit submit when I went to hit edit, which is why I'm responding to myself.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[clone53421]

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/top5_myths_020903-5.html

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

First, meteors aren't hot.

wtf? and this gets modded up to 5?

Re:ein minuten bitte

[spidercoz]

Friction due to deceleration, all that heat is in the air around the meteor, not the meteor itself. Someone further up the thread posted a link explaining this.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

Ablation brings heat away from the meteorite. Some heat shields and rocket nozzles exhaust heat with the same process.

That's why it's the size of a pea when it "hits" a little German boy, which I'm honestly not convinced of for the same reasons other people here aren't. If it buries itself in a road, it doesn't bounce off skin.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that heat would be applied quickly and only really heat up the outer most layer. That layer being the one extremely windswept carrying away heat. The hot part is the part that is falling off. Don't forget the entire center of it is damn near absolute zero from floating in space. I bet it only feels warm for a moment.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[vertinox]

Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug.

I responded to this question on dig and I have simple answer because the same thing happens with full metal jackets ammunition on soft targets.

First the idea that bullets or any objects that pierce flesh will cause blow back is false.

Secondly, the US forces in Mogadishu (you know Black Hawk down) discovered that the their current model of M16s had no stopping power on drug crazed militia men who felt no pain. Their bullets were designed to pierce armored targets and would basically go through the attackers without causing much to the attacker who kept fighting. The bullet would simply pass through the attacker without mushrooming or fragmenting and does not knock them down.

The AK-47 on the other hand does not have this problem and causes massive flesh damage as it not only mushrooms but also spirals through the human body.

You might have trouble punching through Kevlar though...

So if we assume that the meteor burnt off any material that would have "mushroomed" like a hallow point bullet it is safe to assume that it would have pierced the flesh and went on through at that high of a speed without affecting the surrounding hand.

Had it of course hit something harder than bone then it might have shattered and caused more damage.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

My thoughts exactly. Something's fishy.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[clone53421]

Not friction... sorry, just being pedantic.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[spidercoz]

Interesting but I don't think it applies. How big of a gun with what kind of ammo would you need to blow a foot-wide hole in a road? Most typical rounds would just bury, or bounce. Though I think the real problem here is just the article's lack of any kind of logic.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yes it would have gone straight through without causing that much damage, but the story says it bounced off, not passed through.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you missed the part of the article mentioning astronomers and scientists having actually tested the rock and verified that rock is from outer space.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[spidercoz]

Ram pressure, interesting. Very well, I yield to your superior references, sir.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[spidercoz]

apparently you missed the part of my comment where I didn't dispute that

Re:ein minuten bitte

[WebmasterNeal]

This sounds a bit like that Seinfeld episode where Krammer gets spit on and it miraculously turns around in mid air hitting Newmen as well.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[clone53421]

Yeah... it's sort of the inverse of the cryogenic conditions you get with compressed gas that's expanding.

As a side note, that wasn't really my reference. Sort of. Somebody else posted a link to some website that cited that article, which pissed me off for two reasons: it wasn't the original, and it didn't even link to the original (just said "from Space.com"). I had to go to Google to find the actual Space.com article.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[B1oodAnge1]

I certainly missed the part of the article where they supported that claim...

Re:ein minuten bitte

[richmaine]

Hey, it's the Telegraph. You expect maybe accurate reporting or decent writing? If so, I have some waterfront land in Florida to sell you...

Re:ein minuten bitte

[spidercoz]

Yeah, I know. I should have known better.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[geekoid]

Why don't you try some physics?

Some things you might want to think about:
1) F=M*A
2) It's pea sized
3) It's been moving through the atmosphere
4) It's decelerating.
5) The kids wasn't standing at the edge of the atmosphere

I am assuming you can count to 5.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[geekoid]

Nice try at back peddling. You are still wrong.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[gad_zuki!]

>Their bullets were designed to pierce armored targets and would basically go through the attackers without causing much to the attacker who kept fighting.

Im really sick of this "didja know the ak47 is the best weapon evar" attitude. The M16 certainly kills. A hole in your head, liver, lungs, etc can be made with either weapon. I dont care how "drug crazed" you are, that is going to take you down and most likely kill you.

Sure, the AK is a larger round, but its also a lot more inaccurate and its a heavy weapon. If we gave AKs to our Marines we'd be hearing from the "didja know the ak47 is the most inaccurate weapon" crowd and its attendant conspiracy theories.

The M16 is good enough for modern combat, drug fueled enemies or not. The M16's muzzle velocity plus its round size/weight is more than enough to cause hydrostatic shock. The round will tumble through the body just as well as the AK round.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[geekoid]

Great, and when someone gets shot with a gun, we will call you.

In the mean time, lets stick with actual science dealing with falling rocks, mmmmK?

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

In regards to the 'not hot' comment... perhaps the air around it was higher temperature. I'm not a scientist, so I have no clue if that'd be the case or not.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[DragonWriter]

First, meteors aren't hot.

Any object travelling through the atmosphere at substantial speed is going to be hot (at least on its surface; once it hits, a meteor is going to cool off pretty quickly, since it doesn't spend a lot of time in the atmosphere, and the heating is just at the surface, which is why meteorites recovered just after they have landed tend not to be hot.)

Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug.

Assuming it hit perpendicularly, rather than grazing. ("Bouncing" isn't quite accurate for a graze, but its near enough to be typically imprecise speech from a normal human describing the situation, rather than a lie.)

Was the kid's hand blown off? No? Then it didn't leave a fucking crater in the ground either.

This assumes that its angle to the ground was the same as its angle with respect to the hand, which is an unwarranted assumption.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[DriedClexler]

Yeah, and what's more, the proper past participle of "smite" is "smitten", not "smote".

On top of that, I SERIOUSLY doubt the German kid said what they claim. He probably said something more like, "Zuerst hab' ich einen grossen Lichtball gesehen, und dann fuehlt ich ploetzlich Handschmerz." Und so weiter...

Re:ein minuten bitte

[mr_stinky_britches]

great link! This was my favorite part:

Bad Addendum: many people think that a meteorite, after it hits the ground, is very hot and glows red. Actually, meteorites found shortly after impact tend to be warm, but not hot at all! It turns out that it certainly is hot enough to glow while it is in the part of the atmosphere that decelerates it the strongest, but any part that actually melts will be blown off ("ablated") by the wind of its passage. That leaves only the warm part. Even more, the meteor is slowed down so strongly as it moves through the atmosphere that the impact speed is typically only a few hundred kilometers an hour at most . Only the very large (and we're talking meters across) meteors are still moving at thousands of kilometers an hour or more when they impact. Small ones aren't moving that fast at all. Not to say you'd want to be under one: a car in New York was struck by a small meteorite and had a hole punched through it, and the whole back end crushed in. Ouch!

Source

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

But the head, liver and lungs are much smaller targets than the entire torso + head. The inaccuracy of the AK-47 is overblown, at a few hundred meters (where 90% of modern firefights occurs) it is accurate enough to hit a torso if you are aiming for one.

Hydrostatic shock is also a myth, there are a wealth of articles online of US soldiers bemoaning the piercing power of the M16, it is contradictory until you realize that it transfers little to no momentum to the target and cannot knock it down with only one shot (certain exceptions like the head obviously). The AK-47 can knockdown in one shot.

Lastly neither the AK-47 nor the M16 reliably tumble within a human body of average fit. It is the AK-74 5.45 mm rounds that are designed to tumble but even these only start to do so on gel tests10-15cm once it penetrates, again the torso from front to back is not that thick.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

Even small ones can hurt though. From your badastronomy.com link

Small ones aren't moving that fast at all. Not to say you'd want to be under one: a car in New York was struck by a small meteorite and had a hole punched through it, and the whole back end crushed in. Ouch!

Re:ein minuten bitte

[hey!]

I'm not particularly satisfied with the linked article. All it does is put forth a plausible sounding argument for why a meteorite might not be hot. However that argument is not supported either by physical calculations, empirical observations or even anecdotes.

What makes it sound plausible is the idea that you might heat the meteorite so rapidly that the heat does not have time to conduct far past the surface; then we imagine a long trip at subsonic speed at which the object can cool. However there's a lot of variables in that story. Would we expect all meteorites to be almost exactly the same temperature when they hit the Earthy? If not the difference between "warm" and "extremely hot" from the standpoint of human senses isn't very much.

Also when it complains of the phrase "meteoric rise", the article sounds like the rantings of an armchair astronomer to me. Anybody who's seen a bolide pass from near the horizon to directly over head will have seen a meteor rise -- in degrees of angular altitude. It's quite remarkable sight, and generates lots of UFO reports because people who don't know what they're seeing confuse angular altitude with altitude above the Earth. The meteor is a dot of light that seems to drop, then slow to a stop. then it rises, first slowly, then shoots right over your head like a bat out of hell, sometimes with a whoosh. The whoosh was argued for years to be physically impossible because of speed of sound considerations, it was only recently explained. I don't know if the explanation is correct, but I do know I've definitely heard the whoosh.

I once witnesses a Leonid meteor shower in upstate New York, where there were a number of bolides did the drop and rise thing. Many of them split up, a few more than once. If I hadn't known they did all those weird things, I might have expected a UFO invasion.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

So the assertions of a grammar Nazi are somehow to be interpreted as facts? How about some actual evidence or at least some calculations?

Re:ein minuten bitte

[CheshireCatCO]

Actually, it *is* pretty well supported by the anecdotes. There have a been a few reports of hot meteorites (I'm not sure how many of those were later confirmed to BE meteorites, either; I've seen hot slag get confused with meteorites.), but also quite a few of warm or even frosty ones. Take, for example, the case where a ricochet struck a woman in the leg; I know of no reports adding that she was burned by the meteorite at the same time. Doesn't sound like an "extremely hot" rock to me. And the fact that there are NO known reports of fires being started by meteorites also suggests that your protestations are off base. (I notice that you provide no evidence or calculations to back up your rather definitive assertions, incidentally. Care to?)

Another link, if you're curious: http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireball/faqf.html#9

And the author of that page, had you bothered to check, isn't an arm-chair astronomer. He's a PhD'ed astronomer and a well-known science advocate.

Re:ein minuten bitte

[Anonymous Coward]

5) The kids wasn't standing at the edge of the atmosphere

I am assuming you can count to 5.

Sure, but the kid *was* standing at the edge of the atmosphere, like all the rest of us standing on the ground. It's just the bottom rather than the top edge of the atmosphere.

I bet

[koan]

I bet he has super powers now, which frankly, is just as likely as getting hit by a meteorite.

Re:I bet

[suffix tree monkey]

I, for one, welcome our new German teen-aged overlord - Der Unwahrscheinlichmann!

Very Very Valuable

[u8i9o0]

In the meteorite marketplace, any that have hit a man-made object are significantly more valuable, given the rarity of such an occurrence.

A meteorite known to have hit a person would be even more so.

But anyone in such a position would be considered lucky if it doesn't kill them.

Re:Very Very Valuable

[geekoid]

Kill them, it rectum~

er... wait.

More likely shrapnel

[rminsk]

The injury was more likely from the debris kicked up from the impact of the meteor on the ground than the meteor directly striking him on the hand.

Re:More likely shrapnel

[Convector]

That's called "ejecta".

Re:More likely shrapnel

[Anonymous Coward]

The injury was more likely from the debris kicked up from the impact of the meteor on the ground than the meteor directly striking him on the hand.

I guess that would drop the charges against the meteor from attempted murder to criminal negligence. Although I am not a lawyer. Or a meteor.

Re:More likely shrapnel

[MrMista_B]

And how exactly do you presume that debris managed to strike him before the meteor reached the ground?

Re:More likely shrapnel

[clone53421]

It's pretty easy to invert the order when you're trying to remember events which were approximately only milliseconds apart. Especially so when you weren't expecting them to happen in the first place and so weren't paying close attention to the order.

Re:More likely shrapnel

[jefu]

The wow factor of "It hit me then hit the ground" is also much better than "It hit the ground and a piece of ground hit me." Given a choice, I know which story I'd go with.

Re:More likely shrapnel

[Anonymous Coward]

that's called ejaculate

Re:More likely shrapnel

[geekoid]

Most people get the order of event sin the situations wrong.
Seriously, most the stuff you remember is wrong.

Bar conversations

[amicusNYCL]

This guy now automatically wins all bar scar-comparing competitions (when he's allowed to go in a bar, that is).

See this? My cat attacked me, gashed my wrist all the way to the bone.

That's nothing. Look here, rabid racoon, I had to be quarantined for days.

Child's play. Look at this, shot myself with a nail gun, stumbled back and stepped on a rake.

Oh yeah? Well God shot me with a meteorite.

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

german kid can go to the local pub and drink now.

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame on you - no mention of a burn mark from a failed overclocking attempt?

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

He's in Germany. He could technically be in a bar (and even drink).

From Wikipedia:

Possession or consumption of alcohol by minors is not outlawed, but it is illegal to sell them alcohol or let them drink in public below the respective drinking age. "Normal" alcoholic beverages (not distilled beverages) may be consumed by minors in public when in presence of a legal guardian; drinking in private is not controlled. The restrictions on distilled beverages apply also to mixed drinks containing them.

Re:Bar conversations

[Joe Snipe]

See this one? Decapitation, 1993

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually feel bad for the 3rd guy, not this kid.
A nail gun THEN stepping on a rake? Oh hell no, that's just plain nasty man, getting hit with rakes is just not nice.

Re:Bar conversations

[geekoid]

You should show it off to the ladies.

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what killed the old lady living under my room. Not fun, I tell you.

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

Checkmate!

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

He is 14 and he lives in Germany. He could go to a bar today if he wanted to. I went to bars pretty regularly when I was 13, although I was 15 before I started drinking alcoholic beverages while there.

Re:Bar conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

Luxury! When I was young, God couldn't be bothered to shoot us with pea-sized meteorites. We had to take turns throwing one pea-sized-meteorite-sized pea at each other!

Bad Astronomy Post on This

[CheshireCatCO]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/12/a-boy-claims-he-was-hit-by-a-meteorite/

Short story is that it's possible (although not as presented in the media right now), but be skeptical.

Re:Bad Astronomy Post on This

[B1oodAnge1]

Ansgar Kortem, director of Germanyâ(TM)s Walter Hohmann Observatory, said: âoeItâ(TM)s a real meteorite, therefore it is very valuable to collectors and scientists.â

However, my friend the Dutch science writer Govert Schilling talked to Kortem who is claiming he never saw the meteorite and was misquoted. Interesting. While this doesnâ(TM)t negate the story, it does cast some doubt on it.

Interesting.....

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[sakdoctor]

If he is, he'll be able to stop further meteorites from hitting him. But only metallic ones.

Well, sucks to be him

[lanceran]

Now this boy is never gonna win an actual lottery or get anything remotely exciting happen to him. I mean, what are the odds of getting hit by an asteroid AND seeing a leprechaun?

Re:Well, sucks to be him

[maxume]

The odds of both happening to one person are quite slight indeed. As an individual, having the one happen has no bearing on the other.

Re:Well, sucks to be him

[geekgirlandrea]

Clearly, the meteor strike is evidence that this kid is a reverse Teela Brown, so he can look forward to a lifetime of car accidents, lightning strikes, zombie infestations and the occasional glyptodont attack.

Not a likely story

[reginaldo]

There is no way that a meteor would only scar the boy's hand, and then leave a 'foot sized crater' in the road. The only alternative I can see is that the meteor bounced off the road and then hit the boy's hand, but that is equally as implausible.

Red flags

[geekoid]

ON ;picture
No reference
A pea sized Meteorite wouldn't have been traveling fast enough to leave a " foot sized crater on the road. "

If something the size of a pea falling from space could leave a foot sized crater, then building would have a tough time of it becasue we are bombarded with things this size hitting the ground all the time.

Another example, shoot a bullet straight up* and when it falls and hits the ground it will be traveling about as fast as a meteorite.
Hell shot a bullet into the ground and you still wont have a foot sized crater, and that is traveling many, many, times vaster then the terminal velocity of the meteor

*don't shoot a bullet straight up.

Re:Red flags

[coolsnowmen]

Another example, shoot a bullet straight up*...

Are you just trying to see how many of the dumber /.ers you can kill? Cause I hear you can get a higher % return at digg.

(ack the low blow for comedy's sake)

Re:Red flags

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, there's way too much variability with wind, etc. You'll end up killing someone else.

I had a friend in high school whose dad set off gunpowder charges beneath anvils for fun. Even after tamping down the firing surface to completely level on two axes, the anvils would land 20 or 30 feet away from the launch point. (Maximum flight height was ~300 ft, for a 75 lb anvil)

Re:Red flags

[Lord Ender]

Did you just claim that no meteors travel faster than bullets? What, is there some astrological traffic cop out in space regulating their speeds?

Re:Red flags

[clone53421]

Even after tamping down the firing surface to completely level on two axes, the anvils would land 20 or 30 feet away from the launch point.

Unless the powder charge was perfectly symmetrical and centered, that would be expected...

Re:Red flags

[sulliwan]

Meteors definitely travel faster than bullets. However, when they hit the ground, they are called meteorites and unless they were pretty big to start with(over 7 tons or so), they will have lost all their kinetic energy to atmospheric friction so they are moving at terminal velocity, which is indeed much slower than the muzzle velocity of a bullet.

Re:Red flags

[drinkypoo]

when they hit the ground, they are called meteorites and unless they were pretty big to start with(over 7 tons or so), they will have lost all their kinetic energy to atmospheric friction so they are moving at terminal velocity, which is indeed much slower than the muzzle velocity of a bullet.

In fact it's probably a lot lower than the terminal falling velocity of even a tumbling bullet of the same mass, because the bullet is smooth and rounded and usually made entirely of solid lead, which is very dense, and the meteorite is usually neither made of anything as dense as lead nor are they necessarily solid, and they usually are not smooth.

Re:Red flags

[ChrisLambrou]

Terminal velocity is somewhat of a red-herring here. If you were to drop a meteorite from a standing start from a high enough point (lets say you're in a hot air balloon), then terminal velocity is the asymptotic speed that the meteorite would approach as the acceleration due to gravity is cancelled out by air-resistance. But an actual meteorite doesn't hit the ground from a standing start. It could have been travelling at many times the speed of sound when it entered the atmosphere. Sure, its trip through the atmosphere would have slowed it down a little, but there's no guarantee that it would have dropped to terminal velocity before striking the ground. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of meteorites leaving impact craters that are many times their size. I'm no expert, but I presume that they would also have had to have been travelling faster than terminal velocity in order to leave such marks on the ground. (Hmm, it's late - anyone know what tense I used in my last sentence? I sure don't!)

Re:Red flags

[geekoid]

Actually, my point is that it wouldn't kill them.
Unless they were looking into the barrel at the time.

Re:Red flags

[geekoid]

"You'll end up killing someone else." No, they wouldn't. That's my POINT.

Re:Red flags

[amicusNYCL]

"You'll end up killing someone else." No, they wouldn't. That's my POINT.

You're just pushing and pushing, aren't you? My favorite type of argument, you're just so sure that you're correct but don't actually have a clue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire#Falling-bullet_injuries

People are injured, sometimes fatally, when bullets discharged into the air fall back down. The mortality rate among those struck by falling bullets is about 32%, compared with about 2 - 6% normally associated with gunshot wounds. The higher mortality is related to the higher incidence of head wounds from falling bullets.

In the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, about two people die and about 25 more are injured each year from celebratory gunfire on New Year's Eve, the CDC says.

Between the years 1985 - 1992, doctors at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, California treated some 118 people for random falling-bullet injuries. 38 of them died.

Kuwaitis celebrating in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War by firing weapons into the air caused 20 deaths from falling bullets.

Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets and found that .30 caliber rounds reach velocities of 300 feet per second (90 m/s) and larger .50 caliber bullets have a velocity of 500 feet per second (150 m/s). A bullet traveling at only 150 feet per second (46 m/s) to 170 feet per second (52 m/s) can penetrate human skin, and at less than 200 feet per second (60 m/s), it can penetrate the skull.

You're up to 16 times more likely to be killed by getting hit with a falling bullet vs. a horizontal shot. So go ahead, head outside and start firing rounds up into the air, let us know how that turns out for you and the people around you.

..hit by 30,000 mph.. really?

[Seth Kriticos]

The article states that "14-year-old hit by 30,000 mph space meteorite", which sounds like he would have been hit by it with this velocity. Now if he would have been, then he and his near surrounding would be dust. It's true, that meteorites get this speeds when they enter atmosphere, but in the final phase before impact they are slowed down to only a few mph because of the air resistance.

Only really huge fucking cataclysmic asteroids reach ground with devastating speeds (the much bigger ones that create lake size craters).

Also the chance to get hit by an asteroid are astronomically small for an individual, true, but what do you expect when 8 billion people are jumping around all day? Of course it hits someone sometimes.

Re:..hit by 30,000 mph.. really?

[mcvos]

The article states that "14-year-old hit by 30,000 mph space meteorite", which sounds like he would have been hit by it with this velocity.

It sounds more like the speed the asteroid would have had when it entered the atmosphere.

Creepy...

[Facegarden]

I had a nightmare about this just a couple of days ago!

I was in some icy place like the arctic or something, looking at the Aurora Borealis, which was beautiful, and then i saw one point get really bright and then in an instant i realized it was a meteorite and it was coming right for me. It landed about 5 feet from me and I had only enough time to be incredibly frightened and then try to turn to run, but it hit before i could even turn, and then rather than just ending, the dream sort of froze, and I had this terrible feeling that everything was over and I hadn't been able to do anything about it.

I woke up with chills, it was really fucking creepy. I almost never have nightmares either, and I've never had one like that. It was so real and just really impressed the helplessness we have when something like that is happening.

It's even weirder that it happened in real life. I don't really believe in premonitions but that is weird.
-Taylor

Re:Creepy...

[Anonymous Coward]

That story only really makes sense if YOU are the 14-year-old boy who was smote by the meteorite.
Otherwise you're just one of those awkward guys who, after stumbling into co-workers at lunch talking about football, tells about the magical fairy farm that his Uncle has.

Re:Creepy...

[shadowofwind]

I believe your premonition. I think for you it wasn't about the boy, it was about something else, and the boy's experience was just the same kind of image but not in a dream.

I don't think premonitions can be trusted to tell you what to do - they don't point in the direction of right and wrong. And desiring them is generally unhealthy and dangerous, so its just as well for them to be rare and for people to be skeptical. But it might be a useful warning if you do the right thing with it.

Yeah I know I'm likely to get modded crazy by people who don't know WTF I'm talking about, and for being unwilling to publicly post more supporting data. I've already heard all the arguments.

Re:Creepy...

[Facegarden]

I believe your premonition. I think for you it wasn't about the boy, it was about something else, and the boy's experience was just the same kind of image but not in a dream.

I don't think premonitions can be trusted to tell you what to do - they don't point in the direction of right and wrong. And desiring them is generally unhealthy and dangerous, so its just as well for them to be rare and for people to be skeptical. But it might be a useful warning if you do the right thing with it.

Yeah I know I'm likely to get modded crazy by people who don't know WTF I'm talking about, and for being unwilling to publicly post more supporting data. I've already heard all the arguments.

Yeah, it's one of those things, it's hard to quantify but even though I'm very scientific normally, I don't rule out things like this as simply being beyond the understanding of current science.

When I was young (about 8 years old), I had a dream the house was on fire and I asked my mom to make sure there were no oily rags under the kitchen sink.

The next day we woke up and found out that los angeles was burning - the big 1992 fire they had that raged forever.

It was weird.

I don't know what my dream was about and maybe everything is coincidence but you just get that feeling... that maybe it isn't.
-Taylor

Lightning shaped scar

[WoodenTable]

For everyone who can't see it because the image was cropped, I can confirm that the scar is indeed shaped exactly like a lightning bolt. In line with the prophecy from 1979 that states that "the boy who lived" with "lightning in his hand" may one day confront and defeat the terrifying Asteroid menace, I believe we have finally found our champion, the one who finally end the Asteroid threat to all of Earth once and for all. But we'll have to work hard to keep more Asteroids from hitting him in the meantime... are we up to it? I believe so. It is - he is... perhaps our greatest hope.

Re:Lightning shaped scar

[Anonymous Coward]

The Messiah is German and His prophet is called WoodenTable? We're fucked.

Can he keep it?

[RobVB]

If you get hit by a valuable space rock and survive, can you keep it?

Re:Can he keep it?

[BobMcD]

My vote is 'yes'. Who else would have more of a right to it?

Re:Can he keep it?

[lavacano201014]

Maybe after the scientists verify it's a space rock.

Re:Can he keep it?

[RobVB]

If you find 2000-year old pottery in your garden, it's not per definition yours. Could be the same with space rocks, especially if you find them on a public road.

Watch out chilluns

[wiredlogic]

Curiously, a British girl was hit in the foot by a meteorite a few years ago. Is this tit for tat in a new grudge war between the two rivals?

Re:Watch out chilluns

[geekoid]

Your sentence confuses me, where was she hit?

Re:Watch out chilluns

[elthicko]

Her tat?

Re:Watch out chilluns

[Lord Ender]

Only children are hit because only children are outside. Adults spend their days in fabric-covered boxes staring at computer monitors, with roofing protecting them from strikes.

Re:Watch out chilluns

[Anonymous Coward]

"tit for tat?"

I thought you said she was hit in the foot.

Re:Watch out chilluns

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe they'll end up like the couple in this story.

Re:Watch out chilluns

[Flash13]

Wonder if the Germans are routing their meteors through Poland still?

I want to know...

[PortHaven]

What kind of super-powers he developed afterwards.

***

My guess, he did not get hit by the meteorite that made the 1ft crater. Rather, he probably got hit by a small granual fragment that had broken off of the meteorite.

"Smitten", not "smote"

[beanyk]

... unless the boy as doing the smiting.

Re:"Smitten", not "smote"

[nschubach]

I was kind of curious on the choice of the word Smote in the title as well.

Smote: past of smite

1: to strike sharply or heavily especially with the hand or an implement held in the hand
2 a: to kill or severely injure by smiting
    b: to attack or afflict suddenly and injuriously
3: to cause to strike
4: to affect as if by striking [children smitten with the fear of hell â" V. L. Parrington]
5: captivate, take [smitten with her beauty]

intransitive verb: to deliver or deal a blow with or as if with the hand or something held

The title would have me believe that this meteorite was hurled by someone or someone smacked the kid with this meteorite by holding it in their hand.

By using smitten, the kid would be awe struck, or wondrous toward the meteorite but not necessarily physically hit by it.

Re:"Smitten", not "smote"

[mkettler]

Heh, the average American believes the only use for the word "smitten" is as a synonym for lovestruck, and you expect /. to get the grammar right?

Good luck.

Re:"Smitten", not "smote"

[agrippa_cash]

There are actually two types of Americans who say 'smitten': those who become lovestruck and those who play D&D. These groups are mutually exclusive.

Re:"Smitten", not "smote"

[Anonymous Coward]

>By using smitten, the kid would be awe struck, or wondrous toward the meteorite but not necessarily physically hit by it.

This is one of those cases where the figurative means have gradually overshadowed the literal meaning.

Re:"Smitten", not "smote"

[Anonymous Coward]

Smiting is often attributed to deities. According to most superstitious people, God controls everything that happens, so God is the one that smote him. It's a fairly common turn of phrase that I wouldn't think would need explanation.

Re:"Smitten", not "smote"

[Anonymous Coward]

Smitten is just the passive form of smite. Using it in the common 'awe struck' meaning is metaphorical. Literally speaking, smitten does mean to physically hit, so it would be correct here - even if there would be some confusion since people use the metaphorical sense almost exclusively nowadays.

odds

[paulpach]

2 people hit out of 6 billion in the world, so odds are 1 in 3 billion or the PDOOMA 1 in 1 million FTA

what are the odds that either the androgynous boy or some reporter made the whole thing up?

Re:odds

[mr_stinky_britches]

Aren't we forgetting the unknowable quantity of people who were struck and killed by a meteorite, and never found?

uh-oh

[KingPin27]

So now what? random genetic mutations? Green Skin? Red Laser Shooting Eyes?
Or maybe something cool like a sex hungry space alien ala Species?

Pic of hand, pea-meteorite and impact

[EEDAm]

Much better; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1192503/Close-encounter-rock-kind-Schoolboy-survives-direct-hit-meteorite-travelling-30-000mph.html/

Re:Pic of hand, pea-meteorite and impact

[geekoid]

Did you read the comments? Talk about the lack of critical thinking, sheesh.

Re:Pic of hand, pea-meteorite and impact

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of bullshit. 30000 MPH after traveling through the atmosphere? LOL, right.

What a poor picture of the "crater" too. That doesn't even "sort of" look like an impact crater. Not even close. It's just a regular road pothole.

Anyway, even at 30000 MPH that pebble would not make a 1 foot crater in rock + asphalt.

Re:Pic of hand, pea-meteorite and impact

[spidercoz]

no wonder the bloody tories won so big

Re:Pic of hand, pea-meteorite and impact

[amicusNYCL]

I like how they also include an actual photograph of the meteoroid traveling through space.

Back in my days

[jsveiga]

...the dog ate my homework was good enough!

Re:Back in my days

[PagosaSam]

He already used that one and needed a new excuse.

echte grammar nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

hier ist meine chance ein "grammar nazi" zu sein!

eine minute, bitte.

Re:echte grammar nazi

[spidercoz]

apologies, my limited knowledge of German comes from Eddie Izzard

Re:echte grammar nazi

[ArieKremen]

Sentences start with capital letters. Proper nouns should be capitalized in English as well.

Sechs, setzen!

Because every event gets reported?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't count with population of 6 billion. About 1.3 of that live in India. Have you ever been to the country's poor areas (=which is nearly all of it). I've only traveled once through the country and most of that time in a train but I feel confident to say that if someone gets hit by a small meteor there, it won't get reported and confirmed.

Same is true for chine which also has over a billion people. And the poor parts of Africa... And I would guess that the same stands even for a lot of South America and Mexico...

Hell, the amount of people among which such events would likely be reported is probably closer to a billion. And even among them, only those identified as meteor strikes. I wouldn't be surprised if a few would just go "Where the hell did that come from?! WHICH ONE OF YOU FUCKERS THREW A ROCK AT ME?!"

Yeah, one in a million sounds still way of but 2 reported incidents in six billion is far, far away from two incidents in six billion.

Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer)'s take on it

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/

if you look closely at the picture

[circletimessquare]

it seems the meteorite has made him grow to 4-5 times the size of cars next to him

i saw this in a 1950s science documentary involving a woman who grew 50 feet tall and deranged from this sort of tragic accident

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[DarthVain]

Clearly he is some sort of Cylon or Terminator as the magnetic rock was attracted to him...

Curiously it his his hand, which means either Luke Skywalker or a certain state alchemist...

So I am a bit torn as to if we should mob him or not. Better burn him just to be sure. Probably a witch anyway.

Also if he was like Magneto, he would probably make the meteor not hit him I would guess. Which would make him sort sort of Anti-Magneto, his arch nemesis. Which ironically are quite common and Magneto doesn't really like them either. Unless you are in a alternative universe, in which case the opposite would be true.

Its Friday and I am ready to go home now... :)

Are we sure he's still alive?

[sunking2]

The only pictures I see seem to be of his sister.

BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[Khyber]

Pea-sized? That's about 9mm or even larger depending upon the cultivar. I've seen peas the size of .50 caliber rounds (about 12.7mm) and at the 30,000mph in TFAHL that would not only rip the boy's hand off but probably break the bones up to his elbow from the shock. Even at 400mph it would do way more than that. Also, to be pea-sized and make a crater that large, it would have to have more mass than it should have since it's supposedly composed of primarily ferrous material.

And I doubt 30,000MPH. Maybe 250 at best.

But this *IS* the Telegraph. Not exactly a reliable source of news. I'm surprised this actually made it here.

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[relguj9]

I concur, not to cause 2 cases of trying to disseminate internet beliefs, but a quick search lead me to this article on a site about meteorite collection...

http://www.meteoritemarket.com/metid2.htm

It agrees with what you said, it was probably traveling that 30k when it entered the atmosphere and slowed down to 100 or 200 when it hit. The author also seems to believe that unless it's a massive meteor (much greater than the size of that pea) then it's going to fall dark and all you'll hear is a whoosh and a thud.

The story almost sounds like someone pole vaulted over him and shot a gun down.

I'm inclined to agree with the bullshit call.

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[spydum]

I'm trying to figure out how he found the pea-sized rock that hit him. If it hit hard enough to leave a one-foot hole, how did it possibly survive? That rock would have smashed to pieces I would think. Why are there no photos of the impact crater?

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[amicusNYCL]

I've seen peas the size of .50 caliber rounds...And I doubt 30,000MPH. Maybe 250 at best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire#Falling-bullet_injuries

Firearms expert Julian Hatcher studied falling bullets and found that .30 caliber rounds reach velocities of 300 feet per second (90 m/s) and larger .50 caliber bullets have a velocity of 500 feet per second (150 m/s)

500 f/s ~ 340 m/h

You may resume "bwahaha"ing now.

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[iNaya]

Sorry. 500 feet/second ~ 150 METERS/s ~ 340 mi/h

It's called the metric system. And bullets are almost always measured in ft/s or m/s, not usually mi/h.

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[amicusNYCL]

Yes, I understand that, thanks, when I wrote "m/h" I was talking miles per hour (since I was responding to someone who was also talking about miles per hour, since TFA was also talking about miles per hour). OP said a .50 cal bullet goes 250 MPH "at best", I was correcting him. Sorry to the physics nerds for using the wrong symbol for miles.

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[PitaBred]

Did it occur to you that it may have grazed his hand, rather than striking it directly?

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[iNaya]

Oh right... I thought that you thought he meant "miles" when he said "meters". Sorry for getting you wrong.

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[iNaya]

Oh, and I'm a linguistics nerd, not a physics nerd ;-)

Re:BWAHAHAHAHA BULLSHIT

[Khyber]

Nope, because a pea with enough mass to make a hole in the earth as described in TFA + kinetic energy of traveling anywhere from 250-340MPH = broken bones even just glancing off a hand, which has rather fragile bones to begin with, ESPECIALLY where the scar is located.

Take a .50 cal round and just 'graze' a watermelon with it. Watch the watermelon rip itself in half. That's the kind of kinetic energy we're talking about in this little meteorite that 'struck' this child.

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[Goffee71]

He gets his own movie, Gerite Point Blank

Re:skeptical - temperature

[thms]

Hot or cold depends on how fast it went, more specifically was it supersonic when it hit or - if not - for how long has it gone slower than sound.

When something goes supersonic it gets worse and worse at transferring heat to the air molecules, which is a big problem for supersonic craft such as the SR-71 Blackbird - one reason is black is to maximize heat transfer by radiation.

Meteorites which are ice cold when they hit were slowed down below ~330m/s high in the atmosphere and thus cooled down, the hot ones are the fast ones.

I wonder

[juanergie]

how many people consider asteroids a real threat to humankind? Granted, two human occurrences of extraterrestrial pebbles are not cause for concern but, what about when the pebble turns out to be a 200m rock?

It won't be Aphophis, most likely, but it will happen one day.

What the meteor really is..

[keenanvito]

The meteor shown in the picture is actually a tiny piece of the Allspark. Which would explain why he survived and the cars are all tiny in the photo. We'll just wait for the first Decepticon Jetta to attack the driver.

Re:one more thing

[vertinox]

The article never says it bounced off his hand... Though if we take his word for it:

"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," he explained.

I think feel down from the shock of the injury rather the meteor knocking him down.

I don't know why they don't tell the details but if I don't think something going that fast is going to bounce off his hand.

Now if they'd only let us see his hand, we could be sure.

Are you sure that's a boy???

[ewenix]

Geez. Get hair cut you sissy!

Re:Are you sure that's a boy???

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Dude. This kid survived a murder attempt by God Himself. I'm pretty sure he could kick your ass up one side of the block and down the other.

Re:Are you sure that's a boy???

[ewenix]

If God wanted him dead, he would be.

Re:Are you sure that's a boy???

[springbox]

-1, Meteorite

Re:Are you sure that's a boy???

[clone53421]

Yeah... that was just the warning shot.

Re:Are you sure that's a boy???

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude. This kid survived a murder attempt by God Himself. I'm pretty sure he could kick your ass up one side of the block and down the other.

I think it looks like a clumsy come on.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

superman that ho!

So he must be...

[Tailsfan]

So he must be the second person recorded to be struck with such an object. I better watch mah head.

Re:So he must be...

[iNaya]

Yep, almost as deadly as the swine flu.

Aiming shot

[RichMan]

I see the aliens have successfully tested their aiming mechanism.

We should expect the full barrage any time now.

Tough hands!

[RoboRay]

The meteor bounced off his hand then made a foot-wide crater in the road? Wow! He's got tough hands!

Oh, wait... Maybe the injury to his hand was caused by a debris fragment from the road impact. That would actually make sense.

Re:Tough hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't look like a debris scar to me. What would your skin look like if a pebble grazed it at 250 mph? I think the 1-foot crater was a 1-foot scratch on the asphalt. It can't have been buried or they wouldn't have found it, it's so tiny.

Re:What kind of superpowers does s/he have now?

[Tetsujin]

It's a trap!

Your tongues can't repel flavor of that magnitude!

samzenpus

[owlnation]

It's samzenpus who's editor on this. Hence stupid photograph. Samzenpus misses the Idle section evidently. He always posts pics with articles.

In this case he's actually managed to post a relevant pic, albeit not of the hand nor the meteorite. We should however be thankful he's at least in the ballpark with the image -- he's usually wildly irrelevant with his choice of images.

I think samzenpus would really like to work for Digg. I think many of us here would really like him to, too. His stories are usually bordering on idle at best. This is a rare exception, even though it is still quite a tabloid article.

Re:samzenpus

[keenanvito]

Its something, that's for sure. Someone commented later on with better info on it but there is no way the news is recent. The scar was healed and the crater is a pothole and nothing more. This is more likely some gullible stupid news trick just like most of the others that get posted anywhere..

Damn Photographic Evidence

[Ambiguous Coward]

The attached picture completely destroyed any hope of a good run of fat jokes centered on gravitational pull. Oh well. :(

My god

[Anonymous Coward]

This is God punishing the Germans for the holocaust. This person obviously led Jews into the death camps.

Wizard Kid

[nausea_malvarma]

The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million - but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.

Holy Shit, it's Harry Potter!

Re:one more thing

[EkriirkE]

The white-hot meteorite hit the ground so hard it left a foot wide crater in the tarmac and a three-inch long scar on Gerrit's hand where it bounced off him

sounds like he has super armour skin...

I'm calling BS on this one.

[davidbrit2]

So let me get this straight: a meteor strikes a boy's hand, bounces off, and then impacts the ground with enough force to make a 1 ft crater in the ground, and a noise loud enough to leave his ears ringing for hours.

Somehow, I think any object with enough kinetic energy to do that kind of damage to the road would have completely obliterated a soft, fleshy hand, or at least blown clear through it. But just leaving a 3 inch scar and bouncing off, yet packing enough force to knock him to the ground? No way. Not unless this kid is Iron Man.

Re:I'm calling BS on this one.

[geekoid]

I hear he presses pleats like an Iron can.

Re:I'm calling BS on this one.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the meteor that bounces off his hand. It is his hand that is bounced by the meteor.

Wait until 2012 and everyone will win that lottery! Nimbiru is coming!

Why don't they show a picture of the crater ?

All I can say is...

[Pathway]

All I can say is...

Totally cool real life superhero origin story!

Okay, I'll stop geeking out now.

--Pathway

now he SHOULD play the lottery

[Kuciwalker]

I suggest playing the number 4 8 15 16 23 42.

Re:now he SHOULD play the lottery

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. Now I have to change the combination on my luggage.

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[AndrewNeo]

What if he and the meteor had opposite magnetic charges? Then it would have repelled away from him. I don't know much into the specifics of the X-men universe but I have to assume Magneto is capable of controlling both poles.

Vengeance of the Gods

[afabbro]

I'm told on good authority that a few moments before he was struck by this meteorite, he said "EMACS is the best editor and may God strike me down if it isn't!"

Let us all take note.

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[Zantetsuken]

No, it's obviously the power to remember things backwards! Granted it's completely useless since he can't remember things that haven't happened yet...

be careful wlth archaic language

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do not treat archaic language with respect, it will smite you.

(The meteorite smote the boy. He was smitten.)

Death From Above

[Cassander]

Two instances of such an event in less than 60 years does not automatically invalidate the thousands of years prior where such an event had not occurred.

How do you know that no one got hit before that point? We've barely been keeping good records that long.

And what about the possibility of someone getting hit and killed with no witnesses around?

We really just don't have enough information. The sample size is laughably small to be able to extrapolate useful statistics.

Of course, I've never met a statistic that wasn't based on a laughably small sample size, but that's another topic.

P.S. How in the fuck do I make Slashdot make a line break? The "enter" key used to work just fine but now it doesn't. The line spacing looks right in the editor until I hit the preview button, then it magically disappears. I've tried double spacing, html tags... nothing seems to work. Am I just stupid?

Re:P.S.

[Cassander]

So apparently the line break problem is only in the preview, and not in the actual post.

I give up.

Original Source

[tenco]

http://www.derwesten.de/nachrichten/staedte/essen/2009/6/9/news-122286237/detail.html

Well, and I don't know where the details in TFA here posted came from. Actually, the german article states some facts differently (I'll try a translation, umlauts were replaced by me, because /. sucks at Unicode):

"Erst habe ich nur einen grossen, weissen Lichtkegel gesehen. Meine Hand hat weh getan, dann hat es geknallt."

"First I saw only a big, white cone of light. My hand hurt, then there was a bang."

"Nachdem ich das weisse Licht gesehen habe, habe ich an meiner Hand etwas gespuert. Ich denke, dass mich der Meteorit gestreift hat. Vielleicht war es aber auch nur die Hitze", berichtet er und zeigt den Ruecken seiner linken Hand. Die rund zehn Zentimeter lange Brandwunde ueberdeckt bereits eine Kruste. "Das Geraeusch, das folgte, klang wie das Reissen einer Steinplatte und war ziemlich laut", erinnert sich Gerrit und deutet auf den kleinen Kreis aufgeplatzten Asphalts zu seinen Fuessen.

"After I saw the white light, I felt something at my hand. I think, the meteorite streaked me. But maybe it was only the heat." he reported and shows the back of his left hand. A brand around 10 centimeters long is already covered by an eschar. "The sound that followed, sounded like a paver being ripped apart and it was pretty loud", he comemorates and points to a small circle of burst open bitumen by his feet.

END OF TRANSLATION

There's also a picture where one can see the "crater" in front: http://www.derwesten.de/nachrichten/staedte/essen/2009/6/10/news-122286237/imageshow.html?resourceId=picture23923142 (the caption reads: "Gerrit Blank shows his brand and the meteorite that streaked him, while it was falling, near the "crater".

Re:Original Source

[grikdog]

Eschar! Point for you, I had to look that up. But I don't think a meaning that precisely technical is implied by either the German or the fairly benign-looking photograph. (Eschar is a scab particularly associated with burns or excoriating skin diseases.) I suppose a thin hot iron plasma in the vicinity of human flesh for some few milliseconds could produce that sort of injury. It might resemble wounds caused by a lightning strike, I suppose. The English "paver" might be too specific; and it's not a piece of roadbuilding equipment, but an ordinary paving stone from current landscaping jargon, that's intended. "A sound like cracking a flat rock" might be closer to the German, although that's free too.

Who gets it?

[guspasho]

I hope the kid gets to keep the meteorite. I mean, if it struck him before it hit the earth, how can it not be his property?

Mythbusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone submit this to be tested.

Interesting Probability

[PleaseFearMe]

It would actually be more than 6 billion because you'll have to account for all the people that lived at least after 1954, when the previous occurrence happened. How you thought about the probability is very interesting. Instead of treating it as the proportion of the earth surface that is covered with a human body part, you calculated the probability in relation to the number of people actually hit. I think this is sort of like changing a function from the time domain to the frequency domain. Same function, but different way of looking at it. Very nice.

Should make a good comic book origin

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like a good beginning to a comic book...

Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a hoax.
It's the same boy who claimed Nasa had made errors last year and was found to be a hoax.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13723-no-truth-to-claims-that-13yearold-found-nasa-error.html

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[KingPin27]

The atmosphere is slowing it down. Shoot that same gin from a mile up and it will slow to terminal velocity.

What do Gin and terminal velocity have to do with space rocks?

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[phallstrom]

Probably a witch anyway.

Does he float?

Re:one more thing

[geekoid]

No we couldn't. We could only know the hand had been damaged.

Doesn't mater, it's not possible for a matter of that mass to do the damage mentioned.

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Few things wrong with your theory:

1. Meteorites go faster than bullets. Like... lots. The article approximated 30,000 miles/hour. That's more than a bullet.

2. Being shot is an interesting theory, but is kinda negated by the CRATER IN THE GROUND, and scientific testing on said rock proving it came from SPACE!

Too many people?

[Sperbels]

So, that's twice in one century. Maybe there's too many people on the planet.

Someone has to say it...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Germany, you smite the meteors.

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. That equation has nothing to do with terminal velocity. Force and velocity are not the same thing. An object moving at high speeds towards a mass of gravity will gain force only to that of what the gravitational pull allows. The object e=will only slow if there is something in its way. Atmosphere = friction.

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[Shark]

Opposite magnetic charge... Hmmmm. The only way this would work implies singularity doesn't it?

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[BobisOnlyBob]

Pour gin over space rocks, shake at terminal velocity, voilÃ, one more drink to compete with the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[thrillseeker]

Mr. Letterman - is that you? You're already in trouble, dude ...

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[thesandtiger]

F=MA doesn't have a term in it for atmospheric resistance. Before suggesting other people learn and understand, you might want to make absolutely sure you've got it right. F=MA has absolutely nothing to do with atmospheric resistance (save in that atmospheric resistance will have an effect on A).

I wonder if it was a nickel-irony asteroid?

Occam's Razor

[Locke2005]

The probability of somebody lying about a meteor strike is much, much higher than the probability of somebody actually being struck by a meteor.

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[thesandtiger]

And of course, by asteroid, I meant meteorite.

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's frightening to discover that most of the population have such a ridiculously weak understanding of even the most basic level of physics.

Almost everybody seems to believe that meteorites have "hellacious" velocities immediately prior to impact and must be "uber-steamin' hot" to the touch.

The frustrating thing is that these same ignorant people spend much of their free time online, but if they ever visit a site such as Wikipedia, it's to update the Britney Spears entry.

"Like Z0MFG!!!! BS has a new bf!!!!1 I so happy 4 her!!11"

...becomes master fapper...

[goga_russian]

will be showing his new skillz at 7. does he get to keep or at least name it?

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[Laser_iCE]

Does he float?

Will it blend?

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You like 14 year old boys, do you?

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[broggyr]

"Build a bridge out of 'im!"

imperialunits

[richlv]

talking about that quote, when did germany start using imperial units ?

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[The Grim Reefer2]

Opposite magnetic charge... Hmmmm. The only way this would work implies singularity doesn't it?

Perhaps he's talking about the GP's alternative universe.

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[manoelhc]

Maybe he couldn't have a superpower, but if this rock is a kryptonite fragment... Hey Clark, get way for germany!!

Bullshit

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Size of a pea, made of metal, making a foot-wide crater.

OK, compare that to a 9MM handgun round. That won't make a foot wide crater (maybe in sand?), so this pea-sized object must have been moving much faster than a bullet. (problematic)

And we're expected to believe that such an object bounced off his hand before making that crater?

Bullshit. The story is wrong, or the reporter is wrong, or the translator is wrong. Something is wacky.

Isaac Newton could have told you this kid's a liar

[Michael G. Kaplan]

Newton already figured out that a high velocity object will stop once it transfers its momentum into the medium it is penetrating. This concept is known as Impact Depth and Wikipedia has an article on it.

From the article: "An iron meteorite with a length of 1.3 m would punch through the atmosphere, a smaller one would be stopped in the air and drop down by the gravitational pull."

So this pea sized meteorite would have been stopped high up in the atmosphere and then it would have fallen at terminal velocity until it hit the ground. It is absolutely impossible for a meteor that size to have blasted a crater into asphalt.

STFU

[Fantastic Lad]

Gee, that kid sure is good at pulling hoaxes. He even changed his name from Nico Marquardt to Garrit Blank, presumably so nobody would recognize him this time around!

The article was not written by a science writer, obviously, but he was clearly smarter than you.

-FL

Google News oddity - or not

[Lars T.]

According to the German Google News http://news.google.de/news?pz=1&ned=de&hl=de&q=vom+meteorit+getroffenthere are 5 articles in German about this. One of course by infamous Bild.de - "Space attack on Gerrit". The meteorite sure hasn't hit the news here... Do I see some skeptic editors?

This is a message to the sinner.

[thermal_7]

That will teach him to masturbate.

*slowly closes porn windows*

Smite me! oh mighty smiter!

[NoBozo99]

Are you sure the kids name isn't Bruce?

What about the trajectory?

[tgrockhead]

I wasn't there and I'm no ballistics/cosmology/neogeewhizalogy expert, so I can't speak for what really happened. But it seems to me that the supposed hypervelocity pea could have created a crater and small blast to knock the kid over. No one said, or in my lazy skimming, I missed where anyone mentioned the initial trajectory possibilities. An object entering perpendicular to the atmosphere would experience far less drag than an object entering at an oblique angle. I think NASA knows a thing or two about that. Is it simply that the 1950's meteor was an oblique angle trajectory while the smoting (had to use that word again) meteor was closer to perpendicular?

looks like...

[Anonymous Coward]

he looks like a girl...

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[bitrex]

m*dv/dt = -mg - kv^p. If the velocity is high as it would be in the case of a meteorite p would be greater than 1 and the equation is nonlinear; p also depends on the atmospheric pressure which is approximately an decreasing exponential function of altitude. One might also want to take into account the fact that at high velocities heated air ionizes and doesn't behave like an ideal gas - I guess this is why spacecraft engineers use computational fluid dynamics to analyze things like this! Still, he's correct though in that unless you want to get into Hamiltonian or Lagrangian mechanics F=MA is all there is, it just depends on how deep you want to massage the equation.

Meteor!

[catmistake]

Didn't see any pointing out this technicality... but if it really hit him first before striking the ground, then he was struck by a meteor, not a meteorite...

not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

She's cute.

Smote?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, smote?

How about points for science?

[cyn1c77]

Come on people. Use science, not anecdotal evidence about how you think someone might have touched something that fell from space at some point.

The meteoroid starts in the upper atmosphere at a cold temperature, usually approaching earth with a high relative velocity. Viscous effects from the atmosphere decrease the velocity of the meteoroid. These frictional effects also dissipate most of that energy into heating the air that is accelerated by the meteoroid. Conductive heating transfers a portion of that energy to the meteoroid, which can get hot enough to glow and ablate solid material, carrying away energy with it. Early on, the atmosphere can also get heated to the point that it glows due to ionization from shock heating or frictional heating.

If the meteoroid slows down sufficiently, frictional drag (and thus heating) becomes less significant (as it depends on the square of velocity). If it is hotter than the atmosphere then it loses heat to the air from conductive heat transfer.

At the end of the day, it is a heat transfer problem. The meteoroid starts with a certain mass and velocity. It travels through a characterized frictional medium and ends with a different mass and velocity.

No one can possibly say how hot or fast this specific meteorite was when it hit the ground unless they measured the initial state, the final state or calculated the problem based on some estimates. And it is absolutely possible that it was going at a supersonic velocity when it hit him. Of course it is also possible that the rock made a really loud clap when it hit him and a second clap when it hit the ground.

Speaking of superheroes...

[Anonymous Coward]

"SSSSSSSPTHAK!!!!"

Arthur: "Good lord! Tick! You've been hit in the head by a.... by a meteor!!"

Tick: "I can understand your amazement, Arthur. But believe me, the novelty wears off after the first few times."

1-in-bignumber being hit,1-in-million surviving it

[CyberNigma]

yeah probably 1 in a big-assed-number chance of getting hit by a meteorite, but once someone gets hit, then they probably means there's a 1 in a million chance of that person surviving said hit...

"Wired" article on the subject

[clarkie.mg]

Interesting article on "Wired" on the subject : http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/boy-survives-being-struck-by-a-meteorite/
with a photo of a car hit and these numbers :

"A broad 1991 study of meteorite strikes on structures and near humans found that they are relatively common. The authors tabulated 69 strikes on human infrastructure since 1790, including 57 in the 20th century. They also counted 25 near misses of human beings."

Will this case be classified as a near miss or direct hit ?

Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now?

[AndrewNeo]

Yes, I was.. if that were the case in real life I think we'd have more problems with that closer to home.

six out of every seven of them land in water

[Alsee]

Ansgar Kortem director of Germany's Walter Hohmann Observatory: six out of every seven of them land in water

The earth's surface is 70.8% water and 29.2% land. That means almost exactly five out of seven should be striking water and two should be hitting land.

Either there's something very very hinky going on that meteors are actively avoiding the land, or the observatory director is atrociously bad at math, or he's from some other planet with only half as much land surface compared to earth.

-

Re:six out of every seven of them land in water

[Foo2rama]

There is other bad math... "1 in a million chance" By my ruff calcs it is more like 1 in 10 billion..

Re:six out of every seven of them land in water

[Archimboldo]

It has been 25 years since working with anything astronomical, but ...

I googled for the Leonid meteor shower and found that most of the objects in that shower enter from around RA=153 , DECL=+22.

Coming from the north (22 degrees), a meteor has a greater chance of hitting land as most of the land masses are in the northern hemisphere.

Orionids also enter from higher DECs. I'm too lazy to check other meteor showers, but there's an hypothesis for you.

Not Meteor but a Black Hole Singularity Strike

[ImitationEnergy]

You guys need reading glasses. It was so small because it wasn't a meteor: it was a nugget-sized black hole that hit the boy => http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/12/1651244

Sawesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is sad, yet also awesome:

It is totally sawesome!

No more luck?

[awarrenfells]

I guess this kid has no hope of winning the lottery any time soon. I think we are only allowed a single "one in a million card" per person. ^_^

God Takes Potshot at Kid, Misses

[Spiralis Fractus]

...That should have been the title of the article, considering that the high-speed pea-sized ferromagnetic meteorite was basically a bullet from the heavens. ...And God apparently has lousy aim.

Evel Kneivel once said;

[Flash13]

Bones heal, chicks dig scars, pain is temporary, glory is forever.

Re:P.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

CSS weirdness... slashdot has been having lots of it lately.

You'd think they'd at least make sure that "preview" and "post" got the same styles, but apparently not...

Re:F=M*A learn it, understand it.

[Anonymous Coward]

scientific testing on said rock suggesting it could have come from SPACE

FTFY.