[meteorite-list] Wethersfield Meteorite - Part 4 of 4

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Feb 25 15:37:04 2005
Message-ID: <DIIE.0000000200003402_at_paulinet.de>

DENNIS di CICCO (1983) Target Wethersfield - Wethersfield meteorite:
The odds were astronomical (Sky & Telescope, 1983 Feb., pp 118-119):

Dombrowski contacted several people who saw the fireball. He reports that Ted Pace,
a former seafaring navigation officer from Mahwah, New Jersey, saw the meteor plunge
almost straight down in the eastnortheast part of the sky. Through a window in his home
at Marlborough, Massachusetts, Robert De Collibus viewed about three seconds of the
meteor's flight. It appeared in the southwestern sky.

Stan Hedden of Glastonbury, Connecticut, was out jogging about five miles from the
meteorite's impact site when the entire sky appeared to light up. He looked up to see
the fireball about 5? northwest of the zenith. It never appeared to move during his
observation since it was flying almost directly at him! Between 30 and 50 seconds
after he saw the fireball, Hedden heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the
direction of Wethersfield.

These and other reports, along with the orientation of the hole in the Donahue's
roof, give a good indication of the meteorite's direction of travel. Menke and
Charles Hammond, also of CCSC, believe the object approached from 25? off the
vertical at an azimuth of 295? (west-northwest). It probably passed over Canaan,
Connecticut, in the northwest part of the state, on its way to Wethersfield.
 
Certainly one of the most outstanding aspects of the 1982 Wethersfield fall is the
almost incalculable odds that two separate meteorites could strike houses in the
same town. There are, however, several other cases of meteorites falling very close
to one another.

According to Ursula Marvin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a stony
meteorite was found near the rim of Arizona's Meteor Crater, which is known to have been
formed by an iron meteorite. Also, in Ontario, Canada, the Sudbury structure is believed
by many to be an ancient meteorite impact feature. A much younger crater is superimposed
on it. Thus, not only were there two falls in the same location, but they were large enough
to leave enduring impact craters.

What makes the pair of Wethersfield falls so special is how closely they are spaced in time.
Only 11 years elapsed between the two whereas the earlier events were separated by thousands
or even millions of years.


Best wishes,

Bernd
Received on Fri 25 Feb 2005 03:37:01 PM PST