[meteorite-list] 22 Years Ago Today: Peekskill Meteorite Hit Car

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2014 14:58:34 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201410092158.s99LwYj8029411_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://ehstoday.com/environment/throwback-thursday-there-was-no-way-prevent-famous-fall

Throwback Thursday: There Was No Way to Prevent this Famous Fall

Thousands of people in the eastern United States saw and heard the greenish
Peekskill meteorite as it flashed through the night sky, and one witness
said that it crackled like a very loud sparkler."

Josh Cable
EHS Today
October 9, 2014
 
On Oct. 9, 1992, a meteorite hurtled through space, streaked into the
earth's atmosphere and - by the hand of fate - smashed into the trunk
of a 1980 Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, N.Y.

All accidents and injuries are preventable, as the popular saying goes.
But sometimes - despite our best efforts to live safely - the universe
throws a curveball that we never saw coming.

On Oct. 9, 1992, that proverbial curveball was a meteorite that hurtled
through space, streaked into the earth's atmosphere and - by the hand
of fate - smashed into the trunk of a 1980 Chevy Malibu in Peekskill,
N.Y. The meteorite plunged to the earth in a dazzling fireball, startling
fans at a high school football game and slamming into the Chevy Malibu
at 164 mph.

According to the History Channel's website:

"On this day in 1992, 18-year-old Michelle Knapp is watching television
in her parents' living room in Peekskill, N.Y., when she hears a thunderous
crash in the driveway. Alarmed, Knapp ran outside to investigate. What
 she found was startling, to say the least: a sizeable hole in the rear
end of her car, an orange 1980 Chevy Malibu; a matching hole in the gravel
driveway underneath the car; and in the hole, the culprit: what looked
like an ordinary, bowling-ball-sized rock. It was extremely heavy for
its size (it weighed about 28 pounds), shaped like a football and warm
to the touch; also, it smelled vaguely of rotten eggs. The next day, a
curator from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
confirmed that the object was a genuine meteorite."

Thousands of people in the eastern United States saw and heard the greenish
Peekskill meteorite as it flashed through the night sky, and one witness
"said that it crackled like a very loud sparkler," according to history.com.

Scientists later concluded that the Peekskill meteorite was a fragment
of a larger stone that broke as it entered Earth's atmosphere. Knapp's
driveway was the final stop on a harrowing journey that began in the main
asteroid belt in space, between Jupiter and Mars.

Fortunately, no one was injured, and the story had a happy ending for
Knapp: She sold the Malibu - which she'd just bought for $300 - to a meteorite
collector for $10,000.
Received on Thu 09 Oct 2014 05:58:34 PM PDT