Uncle found Meteorite

Axel

Axel

Jr. Member
Sep 3, 2006
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Australia , NSW
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Bounty Hunter IV
here's a story i think alot will be interested in.. (australian story)

About 20 years ago , my uncle was out shooting and came across a small burnt area in the middle of a thick scrub,
and in the middle of the burnt section was a large "rock" , he said the "rock" was silver in colour , with black charring over most of it , and too heavy for him to carry on his own , so he rolled it up under a log and chipped a piece off of it , and left it there...never returning to claim it..

to this day he knows exactly where it is , but he is too old now to climb back down into the scrub... so.. he told me the exact location , and luckily my father used to go shooting with him at the exact spot...

guess who is planning a trip??? ;D
 

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Seems a little to good to be true
If a meteorite hit the ground or a bush it would not be on fire as it hit the ground, and it would not be hot enough to burn bushes. They normally fall cold or luke warm to the touch after impact, also if it were silver in appearance you would have a hell of a time chipping a piece off.

But what the heck Check it out
Keep us informed.
 

Wait a second you are telling me that you don't think that a meteorite falling through the atmosphere at 20,000 miles an hour or so would not be hot, better think about that one again. I would think that it would be be in a small crater if it was big enough that it couldn't be lifted by hand.
 

not too sure on the exact details , but that's what he told me , and dad did see the chunk he busted off...

maybe it broke off a larger rock? and fell to earth...
but anyhow , i'll be checking it out very soon 8)
 

Privit 12

If a meteor the size of one you cant lift hit the ground at 20.000 miles per hour
the area in Question would be devastated and a Crater of substantial perportion would be created.
Objects of smaller sizes gets slowed down buy our thick atmosphere and fall to the ground at much slower speeds, and Do Not hit the ground burning hot.
If every metor hit the surface at high speed we would all be in a lot more danger.
I know a little bit about the subject.
 

Don is right. Meteors fall at 17 to 80 miles per second through the atmosphere (that's 61,000 to 280,000 miles per hour) but the atmosphere effectively slows the object to terminal velocity and it free falls the rest of the way to the ground at 200 miles an hour.

One famous meteorite hunter who interviewed many witnesses to falls said that a number of them told about the meteorite frosting over after the fall near them because of the cold they retain.

The reason they aren't burning hot is because they pass so quickly though our atmosphere (a few seconds) and fall the rest of the way
at terminal velocity. If meteorites that were burning hot when they hit the ground they would be worthless to science as the study of meteorites is the study of undifferinated (unaltered) material that has not been altered by heat. Too hot and the isotopes are reset again and don't reveal information.

--AL
 

I'll be interested in hearng more of this adventure.

Burt
 

don said:
Privit 12

If a meteor the size of one you cant lift hit the ground at 20.000 miles per hour
the area in Question would be devastated and a Crater of substantial perportion would be created.
Objects of smaller sizes gets slowed down buy our thick atmosphere and fall to the ground at much slower speeds, and Do Not hit the ground burning hot.
If every metor hit the surface at high speed we would all be in a lot more danger.
I know a little bit about the subject.
Click to expand...

This came from a website about a New Mexico meteorite story...

...had just sat down to drink her morning cup of coffee on her verandah. She heard awhistling sound and a 16.8 kg meteorite fell just 22meters from her in her backyard. It was half buried in the dry, hard soil. The black fusion crust waseasily visible and it was far too hot to handle.

I've wondered about this too. So, we are having differing stories. I think I'd have to side with the HOT meteorite, because it just makes more sense.

Just my opinion, but want to know.

Burt
 

Hi Burt and all,

There could be some merit to that story if it is the Portales Meteorite fall. I heard one might have partially melted a tarp on that fall and perhaps others were very warm to the touch.

Seem there is always an exception to the rule but the average meteorite comes down cold from witness reports. Again if they heat up then the meteorite is useless to science because the material will be altered when it is hot.

Some meteorites can fall in an oriented way. Sometimes (rarely) heat builds up on those. We see a heat zone on some meteorites, mainly irons. Either from getting too close to the sun or from the fall.

In any case most meteorites have still been documented to be cold to the touch by the lucky witnesses that were able to go over and pull them from the ground right after the fall. I believe this is the rule with a few rare exceptions. The slower the fall the better the chance for some heat to build up.

Stories told by witnesses that aren't scientists or knowledgable about falls often are exaggerated and inaccurate at best.

--AL
 

Well dang guys guess I just don't understand this at all because I just can't figure out why when the space shuttle broke up on reentry the falling debris started an awful lot of fires from heated material wheather it was aluminum, steel, titanium or what ever and most of those pieces didn't weigh nearly as much
(for their size) as most of the meterites that strike earth all the time. Now come on guys this is a very interesting debate so keep it going.
 

almitt said:
Hi Burt and all,

There could be some merit to that story if it is the Portales Meteorite fall. I heard one might have partially melted a tarp on that fall and perhaps others were very warm to the touch...

--AL
Click to expand...

Yes Portales...

My grandparents had a ranch more in the N.E. corner of NM and when we spent the summers there, you could see shooting stars every night. From what I was reading it should be easy to find meteorites because of their size and color. Up in the plains, there is alot of caliche which is very light colored and the grass isn't particularly tall or abundant. So I want to head up there to look around.

As clear as the sky is in the summer, I'd like to see it on a cold, crisp February night. Brrrr :o


I was also reading some of the creeks have some gold in them. So I guess I'll read up on gold prospecting too. 8)

I'll be retiring in December, so I think I'll spend a little time doing that before I get another job. :P

Burt
 

I'll bet a fairly large one could absorb a LOT of heat. Remember, it's very dense and its been in the cold of space. I can imagine that the outside of it would get hot but the core would still be cold. A thin layer on the outside could get REALLY hot, but if it sat there for a few minutes, the core would absorb the heat. Maybe both are right.

Hot, cold or lukewarm, I'm gonna grab it !!!!!
 

Hi privet12 and Burt,

One reply to two posts :-) Regarding the space shuttle, they are traveling a lot slower than space rocks. Because of this it takes longer to pass through the atmosphere and it generates a lot more heat. Space rocks fall so much faster that they ablate during their short passage. Material from the meteoroid is stripped off of it at a very fast pace leaving the cooler material intact (and cold). The pressure that builds up in front of the falling material acts as a very effective break. It then falls at terminal velocity the rest of the way to the ground (dark flight).

Of course the size of an object does effect the type of fall it is. Something really big that doesn't loose all of it's cosmic velocity is going to hit the ground really hard and make an impact crater. With enough speed the energy is converted to heat energy and CAN start fires but then we're talking about something totally different than a meteor fall that delivers a meteorite to the ground.

Meteoroids coming down like a large iron meteoroid are often tumbling. Again the the outside material is ablated rapidly off the object and usually it doesn't absorb much heat at all. It also air cools on the last few miles down. Again if they were red hot it would alter the iron enough that the widmanstatton pattern would be gone and that isn't the case for falls.

While some can be warm to the touch, they still don't start fires and are usually cold. I'm with you, grab it no matter what!

--AL
 

Here's a few article's I found on the subject of hot meteorites. Maybe true, maybe they are not.

*************************************************************************

"Paper: Decatur Evening Herald
City: Decatur, Illinois
Date: Saturday, December 22, 1928
Page: 1

DECLARES METEOR FELL ON HOUSE AND KUKKED WOMAN, BABY

(By United Press)

GREENDALE, N.Y., Dec. 22 - Farmers in this neighborhood Saturday are
convinced that a meteor fell from the sky. Friday night and set fire to a
farm house here, burning a woman and a year old baby to death and injuring
six others painfully.
Scientists say such a thing happens once in 500 years.
J. R. Hicks, a storeheeper, related Saturday that he stood in front of
his store and saw a ball of fire shooting from the sky. It landed on the
roof of William Peator's house he said.
Mrs. William Peator, 43, and Ramond Ford Jr., her one year old nephew
were killed. Others in the house, Minner and Doris Peator, five years old
twins, Ruth Peator, 16, and Mrs. Raymond Ford, 28, were painfully burned."

*******************************************************************

"FAIRBURY, Neb. -- A Fairbury man was watering his yard last week when he had a very rare and close encounter with a possible meteorite.

Brad Kinzie was out watering his yard in the wee hours of the morning Saturday -- trying to avoid the hottest period of the day -- when an object whizzed by his head and landed. Video

Video: Man Says Meteorite Barely Missed Him

"It came over my head, probably, about a foot and a half. I could feel the breeze," Kinzie said. "It was silver and it kind of had red and black on the back of it and smoke."


The object landed about 65 feet from where Kinzie was watering.

"I stood ... here looking at it, 'cause it was still glowing. I says, 'Wow,'" Kinzie said.

Kinzie left it there to cool off, and made two wishes on his falling star.



"One of my wishes came true. My oldest brother wasn't speaking to my sister for two years. They got back together," he said.

Kinzie is checking with University of Nebraska astronomy professors to see if it is a real meteorite. If it is, Kinzie is in very rare company. The chances of this close of an encounter are one in 100 billion, expert said..

"I just been busy, people calling me on the phone," Kinzie said.

Kinzie wouldn't say what his second wish is. After all, he said, it hasn't come true yet.

"Only once in a 100 billion years, and it will probably never happen to me again," he said.

Kinzie said if it is a meteorite, he will probably sell it. Collectors have been known to pay thousands of dollars for rare meteorites. "

*****************************************************************

I can't bring my self to believe that a hot piece of metal falling from outer space is not going to be hot when it reaches the ground even if it does scrub off speed. The speed is scrubbed by friction. Friction makes heat.

That's my two cents.
 

I'm not an expert, but I did look up some info from NASA. http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=1

Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


"Objects from space that enter Earth's atmosphere are -- like space itself -- very cold and they remain so even as they blaze a hot-looking trail toward the ground. "The outer layers are warmed by atmospheric friction, and little bits flake away as they descend," explains Yeomans. This is called ablation and it's a wonderful way to remove heat. (Some commercial heat shields use ablation to keep spacecraft cool when they re- enter Earth's atmosphere.) "Rocky asteroids are poor conductors of heat," Yeomans continued. "Their central regions remain cool even as the hot outer layers are ablated away."


"Small rocky meteorites found immediately after landing will not be hot to the touch," says Yeomans. They will not scorch the ground or start fires. On the other hand, notes Cooke, "if we got hit by something large enough to leave a crater, the fragments might be very hot indeed." A stony meteorite larger than 50 meters might be able to punch through the atmosphere and do such damage"
 

As an experience meteorite hunter, and more importantly, a field case worker I have heard it all before. Especially the " it must have burnt the ground" one.

The public tends to think meteorites are hot on hitting the ground. They are not. When they flame out (retardation point) they are normally still 10 miles up. They cool down rapidly, and upon landing in a humid envioronment, have been known to frost over.

I've heard the "my grandfather saw this fall" story so many times, you'd all laugh. However, I have to deal with some guy who's showing me a chunk of hematite who's got high hopes his rock is worth $10,000 bucks.
 

Hey Texas Meteorite Hunter,

WELCOME TO TREASURE-NET, Have enjoyed your posts,

I'me just a fossil, Artifact, mineral hunter, but I keep my
eyes open for Meteorites.
fossis..........
 

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