Bob sent me a couple of URL links and I just had to stop and pass this bit on to you.
Lorton, VA., is just south of Washington D.C. and near where my Army daughter is stationed at Ft. Belvoir, VA, so it did get my attention. Meteorite falls through the roof of a doctors office and about the size of a baseball before it broke apart.
They were kind enough to send it to the Smithsonian for study. I wonder where it would have been sent if it had fallen through the roof of the White House.
There is a nice video clip at the link but I haven't seen anything on our local news here in northern California. I guess a baseball size hole in your roof is not the same as a 7.1 earthquake on a nearby island country.
You don't expect earthquakes (unless you live where I do) but then you don't expect rocks to fall out of the sky either. Didn't a 10-meter wide asteroid just fly by two days after it was discovered? (2010 AL30)
Now if that had dropped in at the Pentagon it would have raised some eyebrows.
Will add a few more informational links for you consideration.
Happy New Year.
- LRK -
-----------------------------------------
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/national/doctors-office-hit-by-meteorite-0121101264170289032
Doctor's Office Hit By Meteorite
Updated: Friday, 22 Jan 2010, 2:11 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 21 Jan 2010, 9:39 AM EST
By JOHN HENREHAN/myfoxdc
When Lawrence Reese was cleaning up his sub shop in Lorton, Virginia, late Monday afternoon, he heard a tremendous impact outside.
"Loud. Loud enough [that] you could hear it, maybe, a block or two away," recalls Reese. "I'm surprised it didn't break our glass. That's how loud it was."
Something had come hurtling out of the sky, and crashed through the roof of a nearby doctor's office, landing in an empty examination room.
"I thought something fell in Dr. Gallini's office," explained his partner, Dr. Frank Ciampi. "I thought a bookshelf fell on him, so I ran out and saw that he was okay. And then I looked to the left and saw the debris in the hallway."
The debris was smoldering and metallic. The two physicians puzzled over the items. Whatever had come through the roof had broken into several pieces. The two doctors speculated that part of an airliner had come off and fallen through their roof. A nearly circular hole was punched through the building's roof.
An acquaintance suggested the possibility of a meteorite, so the debris was sent to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in nearby Washington, D.C.
snip
-----------------------------------------
Here is a link to the MSNBC "Mystery object whizzes past Earth harmlessly" article.
- LRK -
-----------------------------------------
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34826596/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Mystery object whizzes past Earth harmlessly
Scientists debate its origins but conclude it was likely an asteroid
updated 5:50 p.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 13, 2010
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/news.html
A near-Earth object hurtled past us on Wednesday, just two days after its discovery was announced.
Orbital projections indicated that the object called 2010 AL30 flew by Earth at a distance of just 80,000 miles (130,000 kilometers). That's only one-third of the way from here to the moon.
If the object had been on a collision course with Earth, it wouldn't have done any damage anyway. But planetary scientists said the asteroid, or whatever it was, set a new standard: A 10-meter-wide (33-foot-wide) asteroid can be detected two days before it potentially hits Earth.
snip
Note: A link on the page to some MSNBC videos about same and similar.
Gets rather silly. Enjoy if you don't mind viewing a 30 second ad first.
- LRK -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34831765#34738196
-----------------------------------------
This JPL link has some news about recent Near Earth Objects that have gone by.
- LRK -
-----------------------------------------
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/
Small Asteroid 2010 AL30 To Fly Past The Earth
January 12, 2010
Asteroid 2010 AL30, discovered by the LINEAR survey of MIT's Lincoln Laboratories on Jan. 10, will make a close approach to the Earth's surface to within 76,000 miles on Wednesday January 13 at 12:46 pm Greenwich time (7:46 EST, 4:46 PST).
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news167.html
Small Asteroid 2009 VA Whizzes By The Earth
November 9, 2009
A newly discovered asteroid designated 2009 VA, which is only about 7 meters in size, passed about 2 Earth radii (14,000 km) from the Earth's surface Nov. 6 at around 16:30 EST. This is the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news166.html
Asteroid Impactor Reported over Indonesia
October 23, 2009
On October 8, 2009 about 03:00 Greenwich time, an atmospheric fireball blast was observed and recorded over an island region of Indonesia.
The blast is thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of a small asteroid about 10 meters in diameter that, due to atmospheric pressure, detonated in the atmosphere with an energy of about 50 kilotons (the equivalent of 110 million pounds of TNT explosives). The blast was recorded visually and reported upon by local media representatives. See the YouTube video here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeQBzTkJNhs&videos=jkRJgbXY-90
snip
-----------------------------------------
Here is the link to Space Weather with more kinds of information and near the bottom a table of near misses that might have brightened your sky if they had been dead on.
- LRK -
-----------------------------------------
http://spaceweather.com/
What's Up in Space January 22, 2010
snip
Near-Earth Asteroids
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On January 22, 2010 there were 1093 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Jan. 2010 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid Date(UT) Miss Distance Mag. Size
2010 AL2 Jan. 11 11.5 LD 20 23 m
24761 Ahau Jan. 11 70.8 LD 16 1.4 km
2000 YH66 Jan. 12 69.5 LD 17 1.1 km
2010 AL30 Jan. 13 0.3 LD 14 18 m
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the
visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.
snip
-----------------------------------------
I have just finished reading R. Buckminster Fuller's "NINE CHAINS TO THE MOON" and "Critical Path". I highly recommend reading if you would like to learn more about what had transpired through out history right up to 1980. I hope someone is writing about the last 30 years because a lot of the behind the doors, using your money for other people's gain, still goes on. He had some suggestions on how that might be changed but I don't see it happening.
- LRK -
Thanks for looking up with me.
Larry Kellogg
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
==============================================================
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/82410297.html
New Report Spotlights Impact Hazards
Given the odds of some giant space rock crashing into Earth and what it might do when it hits, scientists now estimate that on average 100 people will die each year from a cosmic impact. How much this number scares you depends on how far out you want to look into the crystal ball. Within the next couple of centuries a Tunguska-like blast might match the devastation of the earthquake that just devastated Haiti. Or fast forward 10 million years, and you can expect a titanic crash powerful enough to wipe out a billion people worldwide.
So should you be worried or not? Put another way, to what lengths — and at what cost — should we go to try to protect ourselves from some asteroid or comet "going rogue" in the foreseeable future?
snip
==============================================================
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_asteroid_encounter
Space head: Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 30, 8:28 am ET
MOSCOW – Russia's space chief said Wednesday his agency will consider sending a spacecraft to a large asteroid to knock it off its path and prevent a possible collision with Earth.
Anatoly Perminov said the space agency will hold a meeting soon to assess a mission to Apophis, telling Golos Rossii radio that it would invite NASA, the European Space Agency, the Chinese space agency and others to join the project once it is finalized.
When the 270-meter (885-foot) asteroid was first discovered in 2004, astronomers estimated the chances of it smashing into Earth in its first flyby in 2029 were as high as 1-in-37.
Further studies ruled out the possibility of an impact in 2029, when the asteroid is expected to come no closer than 18,300 miles (29,450 kilometers) above Earth's surface, but they indicated a small possibility of a hit on subsequent encounters.
In October, NASA lowered the odds that Apophis could hit Earth in 2036 from a 1-in-45,000 as earlier thought to a 1-in-250,000 chance after researchers recalculated the asteroid's path. It said another close encounter in 2068 will involve a 1-in-330,000 chance of impact.
Scientists have long theorized about asteroid deflection strategies. Some have proposed sending a probe to circle around a dangerous asteroid to gradually change its trajectory. Others suggested sending a spacecraft to collide with the asteroid and alter its momentum, or using nuclear weapons to hit it.
Without mentioning NASA findings, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032," Perminov said.
snip
==============================================================
http://meteorites.lpl.arizona.edu/toc.html
Meteorites and Their Properties
Table of Contents
I. Introduction [En Español]
II. The origin of meteorites [En Español]
III. The structure and composition of meteorites [En Español]
IV. Impacting meteorites and their craters [En Español]
V. Frequency of falls [En Español]
VI. The appearance of a freshly-fallen meteorite [En Español]
VII. Hunting for meteorites [En Español]
VIII. Tests for suspected meteorite specimens [En Español]
IX. Meteor reports [En Español]
X. Articles and books of related interest [En Español]
XI. Glossary [En Español]
XII. Credits and Acknowledgements [En Español]
snip
==============================================================
http://www.meteorite.com/news/index.htm
Meteorite News - Meteorites in the News Meteorite-Times Magazine RSS Feed
Expanded Meteorite News Headlines from Around The World
Meteorite Crashes Through Virginia Doctor's Office
A small meteorite fell from the sky and crashed through the roof of a doctor's office in Virginia, but luckily no one was hit, experts say. The half-pound meteorite struck the Lorton, Va office of Dr. Frank Ciampi, a general practice physician, on Monday evening while he was on the second floor of his two-story building.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/22/meteorite-crashes-virginia-doctors-office/?test=latestnews
snip
==============================================================
http://geology.com/meteorites/value-of-meteorites.shtml
HOW MUCH ARE METEORITES WORTH?
A GUIDE TO COLLECTING AND THE METEORITE MARKETPLACE
The fourth in a series of articles by Geoffrey Notkin, Aerolite Meteorites
Meteorite Collecting - The Early Days
When I was a little boy growing up in England in the late 1960s, my greatest treat was traveling up to London’s marvelous Geological Museum (now part of the Natural History Museum, London) to visit their mineral and meteorite collections. At that time nearly all known meteorites were housed in universities and museums and private ownership was not commonplace.
The pioneering American meteorite scientist Harvey H. Nininger opened his Meteorite Museum next to Route 66 in Arizona in 1946 and was one of the first people to start offering meteorite specimens for sale to the public. A few of the natural history supply companies such as Ward's Natural Science were also a source for meteorite specimens but, for the most part, space rocks were the domain of academia and a few eccentric collectors.
During the 1970s and early '80s bold enthusiasts such as Robert Haag, Allan Langheinrich, Marvin Kilgore, Blaine Reed and Edwin Thompson began turning their passion for space rocks into legitimate businesses and the modern world of meteorite collecting was born. In the pre-Internet days, with no popular print publication aimed at the budding space rock collector, it was difficult to meet fellow enthusiasts. The magazines Astronomy and Sky & Telescope would
occasionally publish articles on meteorites; sometimes a small ad for "Meteorites" could be found among the back pages of those publications and the early dealers mailed out newsletters and handmade catalogs to their small customer bases.
Today, space rocks are readily available from many different outlets and the quarterly Meteorite magazine caters to the space rock enthusiast, as does the monthly online publication Meteorite Times and the Meteorite Mailing List (online listserve). There are a number of people, like myself, who work with meteorites full time, and a multitude of collector/dealers who operate part time meteorite-related businesses in order to help underwrite the cost of expanding their own personal collections.
snip
==============================================================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================================================
Doctor's Office Hit By Meteorite
Updated: Friday, 22 Jan 2010, 2:11 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 21 Jan 2010, 9:39 AM EST
By JOHN HENREHAN/myfoxdc
When Lawrence Reese was cleaning up his sub shop in Lorton, Virginia, late Monday afternoon, he heard a tremendous impact outside.
"Loud. Loud enough [that] you could hear it, maybe, a block or two away," recalls Reese. "I'm surprised it didn't break our glass. That's how loud it was."
Something had come hurtling out of the sky, and crashed through the roof of a nearby doctor's office, landing in an empty examination room.
"I thought something fell in Dr. Gallini's office," explained his partner, Dr. Frank Ciampi. "I thought a bookshelf fell on him, so I ran out and saw that he was okay. And then I looked to the left and saw the debris in the hallway."
The debris was smoldering and metallic. The two physicians puzzled over the items. Whatever had come through the roof had broken into several pieces. The two doctors speculated that part of an airliner had come off and fallen through their roof. A nearly circular hole was punched through the building's roof.
An acquaintance suggested the possibility of a meteorite, so the debris was sent to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in nearby Washington, D.C.
snip
------------------------------
Here is a link to the MSNBC "Mystery object whizzes past Earth harmlessly" article.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
Mystery object whizzes past Earth harmlessly
Scientists debate its origins but conclude it was likely an asteroid
updated 5:50 p.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 13, 2010
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/
A near-Earth object hurtled past us on Wednesday, just two days after its discovery was announced.
Orbital projections indicated that the object called 2010 AL30 flew by Earth at a distance of just 80,000 miles (130,000 kilometers). That's only one-third of the way from here to the moon.
If the object had been on a collision course with Earth, it wouldn't have done any damage anyway. But planetary scientists said the asteroid, or whatever it was, set a new standard: A 10-meter-wide (33-foot-wide) asteroid can be detected two days before it potentially hits Earth.
snip
Note: A link on the page to some MSNBC videos about same and similar.
Gets rather silly. Enjoy if you don't mind viewing a 30 second ad first.
- LRK -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
------------------------------
This JPL link has some news about recent Near Earth Objects that have gone by.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/
Small Asteroid 2010 AL30 To Fly Past The Earth
January 12, 2010
Asteroid 2010 AL30, discovered by the LINEAR survey of MIT's Lincoln Laboratories on Jan. 10, will make a close approach to the Earth's surface to within 76,000 miles on Wednesday January 13 at 12:46 pm Greenwich time (7:46 EST, 4:46 PST).
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/
Small Asteroid 2009 VA Whizzes By The Earth
November 9, 2009
A newly discovered asteroid designated 2009 VA, which is only about 7 meters in size, passed about 2 Earth radii (14,000 km) from the Earth's surface Nov. 6 at around 16:30 EST. This is the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/
Asteroid Impactor Reported over Indonesia
October 23, 2009
On October 8, 2009 about 03:00 Greenwich time, an atmospheric fireball blast was observed and recorded over an island region of Indonesia.
The blast is thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of a small asteroid about 10 meters in diameter that, due to atmospheric pressure, detonated in the atmosphere with an energy of about 50 kilotons (the equivalent of 110 million pounds of TNT explosives). The blast was recorded visually and reported upon by local media representatives. See the YouTube video here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
snip
------------------------------
Here is the link to Space Weather with more kinds of information and near the bottom a table of near misses that might have brightened your sky if they had been dead on.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://spaceweather.com/
What's Up in Space January 22, 2010
snip
Near-Earth Asteroids
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On January 22, 2010 there were 1093 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Jan. 2010 Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid Date(UT) Miss Distance Mag. Size
2010 AL2 Jan. 11 11.5 LD 20 23 m
24761 Ahau Jan. 11 70.8 LD 16 1.4 km
2000 YH66 Jan. 12 69.5 LD 17 1.1 km
2010 AL30 Jan. 13 0.3 LD 14 18 m
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance
between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the
visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.
snip
------------------------------
I have just finished reading R. Buckminster Fuller's "NINE CHAINS TO THE MOON" and "Critical Path". I highly recommend reading if you would like to learn more about what had transpired through out history right up to 1980. I hope someone is writing about the last 30 years because a lot of the behind the doors, using your money for other people's gain, still goes on. He had some suggestions on how that might be changed but I don't see it happening.
- LRK -
Thanks for looking up with me.
Larry Kellogg
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
==============================
http://www.skyandtelescope.
New Report Spotlights Impact Hazards
Given the odds of some giant space rock crashing into Earth and what it might do when it hits, scientists now estimate that on average 100 people will die each year from a cosmic impact. How much this number scares you depends on how far out you want to look into the crystal ball. Within the next couple of centuries a Tunguska-like blast might match the devastation of the earthquake that just devastated Haiti. Or fast forward 10 million years, and you can expect a titanic crash powerful enough to wipe out a billion people worldwide.
So should you be worried or not? Put another way, to what lengths — and at what cost — should we go to try to protect ourselves from some asteroid or comet "going rogue" in the foreseeable future?
snip
==============================
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Space head: Russia may send spacecraft to asteroid
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 30, 8:28 am ET
MOSCOW – Russia's space chief said Wednesday his agency will consider sending a spacecraft to a large asteroid to knock it off its path and prevent a possible collision with Earth.
Anatoly Perminov said the space agency will hold a meeting soon to assess a mission to Apophis, telling Golos Rossii radio that it would invite NASA, the European Space Agency, the Chinese space agency and others to join the project once it is finalized.
When the 270-meter (885-foot) asteroid was first discovered in 2004, astronomers estimated the chances of it smashing into Earth in its first flyby in 2029 were as high as 1-in-37.
Further studies ruled out the possibility of an impact in 2029, when the asteroid is expected to come no closer than 18,300 miles (29,450 kilometers) above Earth's surface, but they indicated a small possibility of a hit on subsequent encounters.
In October, NASA lowered the odds that Apophis could hit Earth in 2036 from a 1-in-45,000 as earlier thought to a 1-in-250,000 chance after researchers recalculated the asteroid's path. It said another close encounter in 2068 will involve a 1-in-330,000 chance of impact.
Scientists have long theorized about asteroid deflection strategies. Some have proposed sending a probe to circle around a dangerous asteroid to gradually change its trajectory. Others suggested sending a spacecraft to collide with the asteroid and alter its momentum, or using nuclear weapons to hit it.
Without mentioning NASA findings, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032," Perminov said.
snip
==============================
http://meteorites.lpl.arizona.
Meteorites and Their Properties
Table of Contents
I. Introduction [En Español]
II. The origin of meteorites [En Español]
III. The structure and composition of meteorites [En Español]
IV. Impacting meteorites and their craters [En Español]
V. Frequency of falls [En Español]
VI. The appearance of a freshly-fallen meteorite [En Español]
VII. Hunting for meteorites [En Español]
VIII. Tests for suspected meteorite specimens [En Español]
IX. Meteor reports [En Español]
X. Articles and books of related interest [En Español]
XI. Glossary [En Español]
XII. Credits and Acknowledgements [En Español]
snip
==============================
http://www.meteorite.com/news/
Meteorite News - Meteorites in the News Meteorite-Times Magazine RSS Feed
Expanded Meteorite News Headlines from Around The World
Meteorite Crashes Through Virginia Doctor's Office
A small meteorite fell from the sky and crashed through the roof of a doctor's office in Virginia, but luckily no one was hit, experts say. The half-pound meteorite struck the Lorton, Va office of Dr. Frank Ciampi, a general practice physician, on Monday evening while he was on the second floor of his two-story building.
http://www.foxnews.com/
snip
==============================
http://geology.com/meteorites/
HOW MUCH ARE METEORITES WORTH?
A GUIDE TO COLLECTING AND THE METEORITE MARKETPLACE
The fourth in a series of articles by Geoffrey Notkin, Aerolite Meteorites
Meteorite Collecting - The Early Days
When I was a little boy growing up in England in the late 1960s, my greatest treat was traveling up to London’s marvelous Geological Museum (now part of the Natural History Museum, London) to visit their mineral and meteorite collections. At that time nearly all known meteorites were housed in universities and museums and private ownership was not commonplace.
The pioneering American meteorite scientist Harvey H. Nininger opened his Meteorite Museum next to Route 66 in Arizona in 1946 and was one of the first people to start offering meteorite specimens for sale to the public. A few of the natural history supply companies such as Ward's Natural Science were also a source for meteorite specimens but, for the most part, space rocks were the domain of academia and a few eccentric collectors.
During the 1970s and early '80s bold enthusiasts such as Robert Haag, Allan Langheinrich, Marvin Kilgore, Blaine Reed and Edwin Thompson began turning their passion for space rocks into legitimate businesses and the modern world of meteorite collecting was born. In the pre-Internet days, with no popular print publication aimed at the budding space rock collector, it was difficult to meet fellow enthusiasts. The magazines Astronomy and Sky & Telescope would
occasionally publish articles on meteorites; sometimes a small ad for "Meteorites" could be found among the back pages of those publications and the early dealers mailed out newsletters and handmade catalogs to their small customer bases.
Today, space rocks are readily available from many different outlets and the quarterly Meteorite magazine caters to the space rock enthusiast, as does the monthly online publication Meteorite Times and the Meteorite Mailing List (online listserve). There are a number of people, like myself, who work with meteorites full time, and a multitude of collector/dealers who operate part time meteorite-related businesses in order to help underwrite the cost of expanding their own personal collections.
snip
==============================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.