[meteorite-list] 'Very unlikely' meteorite will be found on NZ soil

From: Mike Groetz <mpg4444_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 08:01:11 -0400
Message-ID: <CABK572CeEri44MrnBgb-66ysKPJEynhxoW8RFmZb60nQMC1Nfg_at_mail.gmail.com>

Not sure if anyone saw my posting yesterday on this. There was no
response. Here is a follow up. There are some good videos associated
with this.
Mike'


http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/very-unlikely-meteorite-found-nz-soil-4813065

Astronomers say it is very unlikely parts of an apparent meteorite
will be found in New Zealand after the object flashed across the
twilight sky last night.

Eye witnesses from Northland to Christchurch spotted what is believed
to be a meteor darting across the sky just before 6.30pm.

Police up and down the country were inundated with calls from people
describing a fireball that flashed green and orange, followed by a
spiral trail.

A sonic boom was reported in the South Island.

Astronomers are set to look into whether the meteor has landed and
become a meteorite.

Auckland's Astronomical Society president Grant Christie told TV ONE's
Breakfast only nine verified pieces of meteorite have ever been found
in New Zealand.

"It's not a good place to look for meteorite parts. Little bits of it
conceivably could survive and have landed, but most likely they landed
in the sea. So it's very unlikely that anything came down," Christie
said.

He said he has seen a report by one person that several minutes after
seeing the object they heard a boom.

"And that's probably a sonic boom. Or it could be a detonation -
what's called a terminal explosion of the thing as it blew itself to
bits."

Christie said meteors appear every night but one as bright as the
object seen last night is reported probably every year or so.

He said an object that bright could be about the size of a basketball,
and while it might look close, is "many tens of kilometres away,
sometimes several hundred kilometres away" when people see it in the
sky.

Christie said the heat is very intense as the object hits the
atmosphere, travelling at something like 30 kilometres a second, and
starting to burn up at about 80 kilometres above Earth.

"As it burns up it leaves a debris trail behind which is what people
saw shining in the twilight sky."

Astronomer John Field of the Carter Observatory told ONE News that by
tracking the orbits of meteors, astronomers can work out where they
came from to give an idea of what their parent body was.

"If they actually fall down to earth and become a meteorite and people
recover it, we can analyse to work out where they came in the solar
system."

Meteors could be about four billion years old, Field said.
Received on Tue 03 Apr 2012 08:01:11 AM PDT