Possible Meteorite Leaves a Crater In Latvia

Several readers made sure we know about the possible meteorite that crashed into a field in northern Latvia yesterday. It left a crater 9m across and 3m deep according to the AP; 15m x 5m according to AFP; or 20m x 10m according to CNN. Sky News reporting includes a video recorded while approaching the smoking crater on foot; something is burning in its center. Xinhua has a brief mention with a good portrait of the crater in daylight, with people standing on its rim for perspective. Various outlets report that local authorities tested for radiation and found levels to be normal. Some quote an expert who estimates that, if it was a meteorite, it was probably around 1m in diameter when it hit. Update 16:40 GMT by SM: As many readers have pointed out, this has been declared a hoax.
Update: 10/27 16:41 GMT by KD : Swedish mobile phone operator Tele2 has now fessed up to pulling off the hoax.

Comments

Smoking crater

[nizo]

If it is a cylinder from Mars we need to nuke it immediately.

Hoax

[NtroP]

It's been reported as a hoax.

Re:Hoax

[arose]

Yep, apparently they found shovel and foot prints as well as rocks that have been dug around and aluminum powder.

Re:Hoax

[hammeraxe]

It has been reported as hoax, indeed. http://www.delfi.lv/news/national/politics/zinatnieki-mazsalaca-visticamak-nav-nokritis.d?id=27621943 This is the original story in Latvian, although it does not seem very reliable to me. They claim that it is a strange coincidence that there was someone with a camera near the crash site, but hey, every kid's got a camera these days. I suppose we'll have to wait until the official investigation is over

Re:Hoax

[sopssa]

Million Reasons Why Latvia Is The Best Country In The World

After seeing that site, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was some funny hoax. (warning: that site will make you browse it for the rest of the day :)

Re:Hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a self-supporting statement. Here's such a report if you still don't understand.

Re:Hoax

[mbone]

The rim looks pretty reasonable - new craters have raised rims (see, e.g., the Sedan crater).

What does look a little suspicious is the edge of the rim - I would expect at least some debris sprayed out into the surrounding fields, which I don't see in the pictures. Also, the video from last night is suspicious - why would stuff at the bottom of the crater burn ? That should just be more dirt - meteorite impacts rarely cause fires, and craters rarely have burnable stuff at the bottom.

If this isn't a hoax, I wonder if some World War II ordinance (say, a 500 lb bomb) couldn't have exploded ? Latvia was certainly fought over during the War (2 or even 3 times in places), and old explosives can become unstable and go off for little or no reason.

Re:Hoax

[sexconker]

Here's a Venn diagram.

[(.)]

[] = Every thing.
() = Every X (kid).
. =Every X (kid) that is Y (in Latvia).

Re:Hoax

[KenAndCorey]

In English: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_re_eu/eu_latvia_meteorite

Re:Hoax

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

The Bad Astronomer says it's fake.

Re:Hoax

[Verdatum]

I must say, I'm shocked and appalled. Please stop posting your disgusting perverted ASCII art on Slashdot. Some people read this stuff at work for chrissakes!

As Long As It's Just Latvia

[RobotRunAmok]

If it was Latveria, it'd probably be a precursor to Clobbering Time.

Watch the local towns

[INeededALogin]

This is exactly what happened when the blob landed. I'm sure the local sherif just got absorbed.

Investigation

[Migraineman]

>Scientists and armed forces from the northern European nation will inspect the crater and conduct an investigation.

Investigator #1: You there, the one with the vodka. Did you find anything?
Scientist #1: [shakes head]
Investigator #1: How about you? [points at soldier smoking a cigarette]
Soldier #8: No.
Investigator #1: What about that group over there [points to Latvians in the distance]
Latvians: "mes nav atrasts sudi"

(surprisingly, Google has a Latvian-to-English translator.)

Bad astronomy

[Kell Bengal]

As Phil Platt pointed out in his book, meteors (unless they're really huge) are typically cold to the touch by the time they hit the ground. Even if it had enough kinetic energy to make a huge crater, the meteor would have pulverised itself and its fragments quickly cooled. Check out his whole site at http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/index.html

I'm calling hoax on this one.

Re:Bad astronomy

[careysub]

Wait, meteors that hit the ground are cold to the touch? That doesn't make sense - they enter the atmosphere, and as we know objects entering the atmosphere travel so fast that they get hot...real hot...so hot that our space ships need to have heat shields to keep the folks inside from getting burnt to a crisp...which makes it not cold to the touch. So when the rock hits the ground why would it become cold all of a sudden? Maybe if it sat around in cold climate for a while but after touch-down it should be very hot.

There is a difference between a space vehicle, which is as light as possible and hollow, and a meteor which is solid rock (or, much more rarely, metal). The heat shield is thin and light (comparatively speaking) but keeps everything inside quite cool despite a very lengthy heating period (due to the shallow re-entry angle of manned vehicles, and most unmanned ones, which cannot stand severe deceleration forces).

A meteor (one meter across or less) typically enters at a steep angle, decelerates rapidly (in several seconds) at a few hundred Gs, and becomes a rock falling under the influence of gravity through the lower atmosphere same as any other rock of similar size dropped from a high-altitude airplane.

For those several seconds a very small part of the rock gets very hot indeed - a thin layer vaporizes, and a thin layer melts. But it is physically impossible for the bulk of the rock to get significantly heated in the few seconds of re-entry, conduction is far too slow. During the longer part of its descent (when it is simply falling through the air for a few tens of seconds), there is enough time for the thin molten surface layer to get cooled down to near normal temperatures by the cold airflow. Then when it hits the ground within a minute or two there is enough time for the icy cold interior to cool down the surface to frigid temperatures.

The special effect of burning a pyrotechnic in the crater was perfect to take in the ignorant, but is laughable to anyone knowing something about meteors.

Official response from Latvian goverment

[sopssa]

Nothing special

Re:Aluminum powder?

[Anonymous Coward]

The meteorite fell on a buried cache of thermite and ignited it. Everyone happy now?

Latvia is a hoax

[Myion]

I live in Latvia and sometimes wonder if my entire country isn't a badly played hoax.