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Skydiver's Helmet Cam Captures a Falling Meteor
reifman (786887) writes "Anders Helstrup went skydiving nearly two years ago near Hedmark, Norway and while he didn't realize it at the time, when he reviewed the footage taken by two cameras fixed to his helmet during the dive, he saw a rock plummet past him. He took it to experts and they realized he had captured a meteorite falling during its dark flight — when it has been slowed by atmospheric braking, and has cooled and is no longer luminous."
Because they are trying to get people involved in the search for the meteorite.
FTFA: 'Since the search for the meteorite has come up empty so far, Helstrup’s story and video has been released in an effort to recruit more people to look for the rock.'
Article notes that they kept it quiet so the geologists could have a look for the rock - I assume these things are pretty rare and perhaps there's even a concern a treasure hunter might get there first and take it? (perhaps a geologist can give a more informed opinion here....) . Certainly I have a geologist friend who was flown from Europe to the deserts of Australia on more than one occasion to look for meteorites because they are so rare... apparently much easier (comparatively speaking) to spot in a bare desert than lush green European landscapes.
The article suggests they looked for it, couldn't find it, and are now asking the public to help find it. Plus perhaps it took a while before the sky diver realised something had happened after a few views of the footage, he might not have realised at the time.
Because as we all know, HN users are experts at meteorites. They are also not at all interested in trying to convince people of how smart they are by calling others wrong.
Oh yeah, he wouldn't notice a 10lb rock in his schute... That'd be real safe.
Have you ever packed a schute? It's quite cramped you know and a medium watermelon is quite noiticable.
Notice in the video right before "the rock" flies past there is a spec in the distance too, lower left side of screen.
This may be another fragment of the same meteorite as it broke up and would support the "larger rock breaking up" theory.
It also fits with the fresh fracture-surface seen on the large object.
Why did noone in the video mention this second piece?
More likely he laid has parachute on the ground for packing and accidentally picked up a rock without noticing and it was ejected when he pulled the chord.
Which then defied gravity by matching speed with him as he slowed for more than 5 seconds before dropping past?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
He said he even felt something strange during the flight and checked the video after touching the ground.
I can't wait to see what kind of super power he develops.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
Burned out meteors have slowed down to terminal velocity (or close to it) so they would be going at a similar speed to a rock tossed from a plane, several times faster than the terminal velocity of a human, but only a few hundred meters per second, the video is within the plausible zone for speed. Pretty astonishing bit of video.
Every time I hear of a story with insane odds and think just how impossible it is,
The thing is that we have human brains evolved to cope with everyday situations. We fail spectacularily at the very small and very large. We fail utterly and catastrophically when those two meet. "Black Swan" is a great book on that topic.
The thing with the highly improbably is the scale at which they happen. We have close to 7 billion people living on that planet. Which - in the words of Tim Minchin - means that one in a million chance events happen all the time.
Literally.
If something has a one in a million chance of happening in a lifetime, then it will happen to 7,000 people who are currently alive. Assuming 70 years life-expectancy (for simplicity and because it gives a nice round number) that means it happens 100 times every year, or roughly every 3-4 days.
That's counter-intuitive, isn't it? Globally speaking, "one in a million" events happen twice a week.
And "one in a million per year" events happen almost every hour.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The skydiver had his 'chute open (so probably moving at around 30kph) and the rock was said to be moving at ~300kph... So the rock was passing him at ~75m/s
If the video was shot at 25fps progressive (This is in PAL-land, remember), the rock would move around 3m between frames. Which pretty much matches up to that composite image from TFA.
Worst. Signature. Ever.
Did nobody else see the bird fly past a second after the shiny rock....? His parachute was deployed, so he wasn't *that* high up. If I was a bird that just saw a man fall from an aeroplane and then explode into a giant jellyfish, I'd drop whatever shit I was carrying too.
Spent All My Mod Points
Typical Slashdot, spend 17 seconds on an article and be convinced that you understand more than those who spent hours, days or years on a subject!
Subjetively, I've spent hours, days and years on Slashdot.
That's got to count for something, right?
...why skydivers wear an helmet.
I could easily see the object being popped of of the top of his chute and then falling past him.
Because everyone knows that parachutes are ejected with explosive charges, or in the more modern versions, a bottle of compressed air.
I have gone skydiving, and the acceleration (or decelaration if you prefer) is rather violent. Without doing the math, I very much doubt that anything would be "popped off the top of the chute".
Another possible explanation is that the object fell from either the plane or another skydiver (as he was first out of the plane). I would deem this unlikely, but far more likely than a meteorite.
A rock of that size does not simply find its way into a plane, or into a skydiver's pocket. Gravel-sized rocks, sure. Something the size of your fist? No, just no.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Obviously he's to become the living embodiement of Thor. All the clues are there.... the space rock (pretty cool hammer from the sky). He's also Norwegian... descendent of the Vikings.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
I happened to read about this story last night, so here's a few more interesting links:
More technical report: http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1399
YouTube channel with the original, non-edited videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/DarkFlightMeteorite/videos
First I thought it sounded like a hoax promoting a camera or skydiving equipment, but I now think it is legit. Or a very elaborate hoax!
I am a licensed skydiver and I can tell you that I have seen objects fall out of my canopy on opening and I've seen videos of others that look very similar to this.
It is actually very easy to explain the delay once you understand how modern square ram air parachutes are designed.
Modern canopies are roughly rectangular and are composed of 7 - 9 cells in parallel.
Each cell has an opening at the nose of the canopy that is roughly rectangular. The cell tapers down until the topskin and bottom skin meet at the tail. This creates the parafoil (wing) that looks a lot like an airplane.
On the ground, it is very easy for objects to end up inside of a cell. When you pack the parachute, these objects can move deeper into the cell (maybe all the way to the tail).
Opening is a very violent process during which the parachute expands from being in a bag approximately the size of a woman's purse to full flight which, depending on the parachute, can be anywhere from ~100 - 400 square feet.
My parachute is a Sabre 2 170 which means it is just under 20 feet wide and 7 feet deep.
This means that on opening, an object in the tail of the parachute would have to move forward 7 feet. Depending on the pitch of the canopy and what maneuvers I am executing, the combination of the angle and gravity could easily keep an object inside the canopy for more than 5 seconds. The object (even a good sized rock) would stay in there for the entire flight.
You have to also consider that this was a wingsuit deployment, which has different opening characteristics than a traditional vertical deployment because the jumper has much more forward velocity and less vertical velocity. This would affect the orientation of the canopy and would have an effect on how objects inside the canopy would move around.
I have personally seen grass and twigs come out of my canopy. I have seen a video from a friend who saw several socks come out of his nose as his canopy had been sitting unpacked next to a laundry basket the night before. Parachute riggers that do inspections or repairs on canopies have great stories of things they have found inside canopies including phones and drugs.
So while the meteorite story is exciting, the idea of a rock falling in your immediate airspace doesn't sound very impossible if you're a skydiver. I'd not call it common, but it's certainly not a rare occurrence. While not the most newsworthy, the simplest explanation is the guy packed a rock in his parachute and god knows how he didn't notice when he packed but it wouldn't be the first rock to take make a skydive.
I have yet to hear an ad on Slashdot, maybe you guys got 3rd party adware?
It's not exposed to atmospheric heat (from compression, not friction) for long enough. It's heated for seconds, and the heat is so intense that it blasts off outer layers instead of dispersing into the body -- which, remember, is at cryogenic temperatures when it hits the atmosphere.
The light from meteors is nearly all from compressed atmosphere and vaporized rock/metal. All the material that's hot enough to glow gets knocked off.
Because everyone knows that parachutes are ejected with explosive charges, or in the more modern versions, a bottle of compressed air.
No, sport parachutes are deployed by hand either with a pilot chute deployed by hand or by a spring loaded pilot chute deployed by a ripcord. There is an automatic activation device for the reserve parachute that uses a small pyrotechnic charge inside a cylinder that propels a cutter to sever a fabric closing loop that allows a spring loaded pilot chute to deploy.
I have gone skydiving, and the acceleration (or decelaration if you prefer) is rather violent. Without doing the math, I very much doubt that anything would be "popped off the top of the chute".
It could easily happen depending on where the object was. if it was inside of the parachute or inside of the deployment bag.
A rock of that size does not simply find its way into a plane, or into a skydiver's pocket. Gravel-sized rocks, sure. Something the size of your fist? No, just no.
Can easily find its way into a parachute, however. People who don't skydive think that parachutes are packed with surgical precision. Not the case at all.
http://vimeo.com/29954873 Rocks!