Indian officials say a meteorite struck the campus of a private engineering college on Saturday, killing one person. If scientists confirm the explosion was due to a meteorite, it would be the first recorded human fatality due to a falling space rock.
According to local reports, a bus driver was killed on Saturday when a meteorite landed in the area where he was walking, damaging the window panes of nearby buses and buildings. Three other people were injured.
On Sunday, various Indian publications, including The Hindu, reported that the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa, issued a statement confirming the death: "A mishap occurred yesterday when a meteorite fell in the campus of a private engineering college in Vellore district's K Pantharappalli village." Tamil Nadu is located in southern India, and has a population of more than 70 million people.
There have been no confirmed human deaths due to meteorite strikes, although there have been a number of interesting close calls, based upon a list kept by International Comet Quarterly. For example, meteorites have landed in homes and hit people as they have slept, but have not killed them.
In our most recent close call, a bright fireball created a huge airblast over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. The resulting shock damaged thousands of buildings and injured more than 1,000 people. But there were no fatalities.
101 Reader Comments
Space funding? Pfft. A couple trillion more and the F-35 should be able to handle the job.
Sorry- this is too click-baity for my taste.
If I am missing the scientific (technical, social, or personal) relevance, happy to be corrected.
Speak for yourself. News is by definition noteworthy recent events. A meteorite potentially hitting someone is noteworthy.
All alone
Down the street
In the alley
Her name was Sally
I never touched her
She never saw it
She was hit by space junk
She was smashed by space junk
She was killed by space junk
Look up Ann Hodges. She was hit by one that came through her roof. She got one of the biggest and nastiest bruises I've ever seen.
She blamed it and the celebrity of the event for basically ruining her life.
Keep him on his toes; just tell him that meteors are more likely to hit larger, slower-moving people, especially those with dirty rooms and unfinished homework.
Situation is way more complex. The angle, speed and even composition of the meteorite make a huge difference.
I suppose that's possible, but I had a similar experience when I was young, playing with a magnet that somewhat mysteriously was picking up very fine iron particles from dirt.
Turned out, though, that the effect was pretty localized; other patches of dirt yielded nothing. After a while, it developed that an old underground iron sprinkler pipe had rotted out. We found the ends, but the mid-portion had just crumbled away over the years.
If what you say is true, it ought to be possible to duplicate the experiment over pretty much any random patch of ground. My admittedly limited experience suggests otherwise.
:-)
So when people say "What are the odds of that happening?" Unfortunately for some, the odds are too high.
http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/stump-fr ... d-glostrup
But I also wouldn't expect an enlightened person (average ars commenter) to make silly puns and bad jokes about it, in writing, on a public forum. disappointing.
Rip.
whats better is getting them from your rain gutters, my son and i did a science fair project on metorites.We collected all the bits off the asphalt shingles and "dirt" then he did a board up on it, and had the kids and judges run a magnet through it, then preceded to to tell what was stuck was metorites. He got 1st in his class, 2nd school wide and got to compete against those at the high school fair, an got an honourable mention, not bad for a 10yr old.
3,720 to 1.
EDIT: I am sooo disappointed in Ars right now. <sigh>
Last edited by CraigJ on Sun Feb 07, 2016 7:25 pm
I suppose that's possible, but I had a similar experience when I was young, playing with a magnet that somewhat mysteriously was picking up very fine iron particles from dirt.
Turned out, though, that the effect was pretty localized; other patches of dirt yielded nothing. After a while, it developed that an old underground iron sprinkler pipe had rotted out. We found the ends, but the mid-portion had just crumbled away over the years.
If what you say is true, it ought to be possible to duplicate the experiment over pretty much any random patch of ground. My admittedly limited experience suggests otherwise.
I used to do this too as a kid, actually several of us did, in the sand pits in the schoolyard. I'm guessing that if you examined the particles under a microscope (for some reason, we never did, although we'd willingly prick our own fingers to look at blood cells), a good percentage would be of terrestrial origin (various bits of rust, or magnetite particles) but you'd also find a fair number of meteoric origin. They'd have a melted appearance, although the real clincher would be (chemical test required) a relatively high percentage of nickel.
Even the meteorites which burn up in the atmosphere are going to (eventually) rain down a fine dust of particles.
Easy. Since it happened, the odds are exactly one.
Now, if you want the odds on it happening again, we'll need a few more parameters. The odds of the same poor guy getting killed again by another meteorite are zero. The odds of some random person in some specific time frame, that goes up.
A mercan? You mean a merkin? A meteorite hitting a pubic wig is now the funniest mental image I've ever had, so thank you for that.
Sorry- this is too click-baity for my taste.
If I am missing the scientific (technical, social, or personal) relevance, happy to be corrected.
Speak for yourself. News is by definition noteworthy recent events. A meteorite potentially hitting someone is noteworthy.
He was speaking speaking for himself, he said "Sorry this is too click-baity for my taste".
I was disputing his analysis which determined there was something substantially click-baity about it.
(*if the aliens in the novel were really small )
Going forwarded all meteorites must register with the FAA before entering the earth's atmosphere!
Hmm... multiply by... carry one over... subtract 3...
Dude, you are F'd.
(*if the aliens in the novel were really small )
That was exactly my thought, too (see above). Maybe this was just a test shot. I loved that book, when I read it 30 years ago as a kid :-)
You must login or create an account to comment.