[meteorite-list] Of interest

From: Rothery Melvin <ann.melvin_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:52:23 2004
Message-ID: <3D6B75FF.862A8CAC_at_sympatico.ca>

Robert Benchley would say, "I told you so."

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Tuesday, 27 August, 2002, 12:27 GMT 13:27 UK

'Meteorite' hits girl

The odds against being hit by a meteorite are billions to one - but a
teenager in North
Yorkshire may have had one land on her foot.

Siobhan Cowton, 14, was getting into the family car outside her
Northallerton home at 1030
BST on Thursday when a stone fell on her from the sky.


" This does not happen very often in Northallerton "


Siobhan Cowton

Noticing it was "quite hot", she showed it to her father Niel.

The family now plan to have the stone analysed by scientists at Durham
University.

"I saw it fall from above roof height," Siobhan told BBC News Online.

"It looked very unusual, with a bubbled surface and tiny indentations
like volcanic lava.

'Shiny'

"It was shiny on one side and looked rusty as if it contained iron.

"I've seen shooting stars before - but nothing like this. This does not
happen very often in
Northallerton."

Mr Cowton, 45, told BBC News Online he would take the stone to be
analysed himself.

"It is not going to leave my sight because it is a very rare find," he
said.

"It is worth a lot to Siobhan.

"We will have it mounted in a glass presentation case so she can keep it
for the rest of her
life.

"After all it is not every day you get hit by a meteorite.

"The odds of winning the Lottery are better."

The stone could have come from Mars, according to expert on Earth
impacts Dr Benny
Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University.

"It could be billions of years old and come from the earliest formation
of the solar system,"
he told the Daily Mail newspaper.

Most meteors are between five and 60 centimetres (1.95 in and 1 ft 11.5
in) long, according
to Durham University physical geography lecturer Dr Ben Horton.

"Sometimes they have shallow depressions and cavities," he said.


Related to this story:
Meteorite 'changed Earth's history' (23 Aug 02 | Science/Nature) Rare
space rock 'a gem'
(22 Jul 02 | Science/Nature) Fireball ignites scientific curiosity (12
Oct 00 | Science/Nature)
Meteorite records early Solar System (05 Sep 00 | Science/Nature) Rare
space rock in
British lab (08 Sep 00 | Festival of science)


Internet links: Durham University | Liverpool John Moores University
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Received on Tue 27 Aug 2002 08:52:16 AM PDT