News Boy Hit by Meteorite Traveling at 30,000 MPH

[n122vu]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wo...=ARTICLE_15302251_Boy_Hit_On_Arm_By_White-Hot

Crazy...

 

[astrosammy]

Man, he is lucky, he's only the second human hit by a meteroite! And it happened not far from here.

 

[RisingFury]

Aaaah... no pics of the impact site and the scar on his hand? Lame...

But if it's true then that's amazing!

 

[Urwumpe]

If it did hit him at 30,000 mph, he wouldn't be there to tell the story. High speed impacts cause terrible things to living tissue.

The white-hot meteorite bounced off the schoolboy's hand and hit the ground so hard it left a foot-long crater in the tarmac - as well as a three-inch scar on his hand.

Who else thinks that the truth in the story is pretty small and short?

 

[RisingFury]

Who else thinks that the truth in the story is pretty small and short?

Me...

Yea, I was thinking kinda the same... if it did hit him at a high enough velocity to cause damage the the pavement, it would go right through his hand and cause some massive damage.

 

[Urwumpe]

Me...

Yea, I was thinking kinda the same... if it did hit him at a high enough velocity to cause damage the the pavement, it would go right through his hand and cause some massive damage.

Well, it could also have almost missed it, but still, the hypervelocity impact would cause far more damage than just a long injury. At 1800 m/s, the pure displacement of air by a projectile is enough for peeling a wide patch skin of your body without the projectile actually hitting you. 14,000 m/s is already far beyond the threshold of the projectile evaporating on impact, there should not be a tiny meteorite left at all.

Just to highlight the atmospheric friction effect of the equation: At 14,000 m/s at about sea-level (1.2 kg/m³ air density), the projectile should produce 0.6 * 14,000³ = 1.646 Terawatt/m² as aerodynamic heat flux. The object has about 0.5 mm diameter, so the area is 0.0000785 m². Means the projectile still produces 129.3 MW.

Now, how much energy would the boy have gotten on his hand approximatly only by atmospheric heat flux? 693 Joule. Not that much energy anymore, but still quite a lot for a hand (kinetic energy of a baseball at the speed of sound).

 

[Torgo]

If there was a foot long crater, what are the chances the kid was hit by shrapnel from the ground, and not the meteorite?

At the speed that rock was travelling, it's nanoseconds from the hand to the ground, much to close to tell which got hit first.

The ejecta from the crater would be moving with much less kinetic energy and would be more likely to cause the type of injury the boy received.

 

[Kaito]

Okay, let me get this straight...
a meteorite hit a hid in his hand, bounced off, then hit the ground and made a crater...and only a 3 inch scar?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the meteorite just go through his hand?

 

[Andy44]

Yeah, something doesn't add up, it's posible that he doesn't remember the exact sequence of events.

Also, I don't understand where the loud "crash of thunder" came from. This thing is the size of a pea, I would expect the sonic boom from such an object to be comparable to the crack of a rifle bullet, not a thunderclap.

Still, it's an amazing story, even if it was a near miss.

 

[razgriz31m]

lol, i agree

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

lol, it hit his hand, and he flew? ummm...i think if the rock hit his hand, his shoulder should twist like hell first before flying,...but hitting his hand then he flew? oh wtf....wth is this story

 

[n122vu]

Exactly why I posted this. Crazy...that they would believe this kid's story and then publish it.

Like his skin is going to be tougher than the concrete that it cut a foot-long gash in? Please...

 

[Unstung]

I read the story earlier, and the meteorite did not seem like it could hit the boy's hand at that velocity with such little damage. Torgo's explanation seems much more valid, that the ejecta hit the hand.

 

[dmc]

Yea... total BS. Most likely, like other people have stated, it was just a piece of tarmac flying up and hitting him. And I think him "flying back" back was because he almost *@$! himself. I mean lets just look at the logic of this situation: a tiny rock, flying at 30,000 mph bounced off of a kids arm or hand, but yet it still had enough energy left to make a crater in tarmac? By this same theory bullets should easily be able to just bounce off of people, since they are only traveling around 1000 mph. Yea....
I dont know, maybe I got it all wrong and hes the new superman.
​

 

[cr1]

You know... he's young after all... and his story is kind of unique... so some aspects of his retelling of the events may be somehow exaggerated.

 

[Artlav]

It's a damn news story - divide by 20, turn 90 degrees, squash, wash, dry out and reassemble to get some truth.
My guess is - it happened, but somewhat different.