Incoming!

[Lilly]

Meteorite hits Norway!

This is simply exceptional. I cannot imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to compare it to the (atomic) bomb," Røed Ødegaard said.

Yikes!

[Waspie_Dwarf]

You beat me to it Lilly, I was just about to post that story.

It's a good job it fell over a sparsely populated area. It is highly possible that there will be no large crater, objects this size frequently explode in the atmosphere. Most of them do so at high enough altitude so that they are not even noticed.

[frogfish]

Good thing not many were injured.

[mypaddedroom]

At around 2:05 a.m. on Wednesday, residents of the northern part of Troms and the western areas of Finnmark could clearly see a ball of fire taking several seconds to travel across the sky.

A few minutes later an impact could be heard and geophysics and seismology research foundation NORSAR registered a powerful sound and seismic disturbances at 02:13.25 a.m. at their station in Karasjok.

Farmer Peter Bruvold was out on his farm in Lyngseidet with a camera because his mare Virika was about to foal for the first time.

"I saw a brilliant flash of light in the sky, and this became a light with a tail of smoke," Bruvold told Aftenposten.no. He photographed the object and then continued to tend to his animals when he heard an enormous crash.

"I heard the bang seven minutes later. It sounded like when you set off a solid charge of dynamite a kilometer (0.62 miles) away," Bruvold said.

Astronomers were excited by the news.

"There were ground tremors, a house shook and a curtain was blown into the house," Norway's best known astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told Aftenposten.no.

Røed Ødegaard said the meteorite was visible to an area of several hundred kilometers despite the brightness of the midnight sunlit summer sky. The meteorite hit a mountainside in Reisadalen in North Troms.

"This is simply exceptional. I cannot imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to compare it to the (atomic) bomb," Røed Ødegaard said.

The astronomer believes the meteorite was a giant rock and probably the largest known to have struck Norway.

"The record was the Alta meteorite that landed in 1904. That one was 90 kilos (198 lbs) but we think the meteorite that landed Wednesday was considerably larger," Røed Ødegaard said, and urged members of the public who saw the object or may have found remnants to contact the Institute of Astrophysics

[Waspie_Dwarf]

I am merging this with a thread which already exists on this subject.

Waspie_Dwarf

Edited June 10, 2006 by Waspie_Dwarf

[Abecrombie]

Huh? didnt look like it was that big . mmmm im sure there will be more

whoops gotta go chillie peppers are on ,.

[shun]

Needless to say, this is very interesting, especially the picture. I don't know anymore than

what that shows, and there was a shockwave toward the end of the event.

Just guessing, but it appears to be at ~60000 ft. altitude.

The time/angle it takes to descend, will dissipate energy, as it slams against the wall of the atmosphere.

In addition, the picture appears to show fragmentation.

Either it was a previously relatively unscathed impact body, or it was cracked from collisions in deep space (astroid belt). If it was fissured at the outset, even a tough iron-nickle bearing projectile would stand less chance of making it to an alititude where it would have some residual impact evidence, or leave specimans to find.

It looks like the trail is brightly colored. This is mere speculation, but that could mean it had a significant ratio of iron or nickle. Just a guess, obviously. But, my final guess is based upon-

1. The camera person saw a flash, looked up, took a picture, in short order.

2. It was described as taking ~several seconds, to cross the sky.

3. An astronomer ventured it was a Hiroshima-class event.

I set a compromise between all of this, and the astronomer's estimate is something I really trimmed down. Just a guess, but for the sake of acquiring some numbers, I say it was 75% smaller-

500 kg @ 6245 m/sec @ 60000 ft. altitude= 9752233375 joules

[Waspie_Dwarf]

It seems that the initial estimates of the size of this object were greatly exagerrated.

The 12th July edition of Aftenpost has a report that Truls Lynne Hansen of the Northern Lights Observatory (Nordlysobservatoriet) in Tromsø disagrees with the initial estimates of the meteorites size:

He thinks that what hit northern Norway last week was a stone weighing around 12 kilos (about 26 pounds).

Source: Aftenpost 12/6/06

In todays Aftenpost another astronomer, from the Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, has apologised for the fuss caused by "exaggerated explosive force", claims made in relation to this meteorite.

In an editorial at Norwegian science news site forskning.no, Professor Kaare Aksnes said it was regrettable that this comparison had been made, and that it was extremely exaggerated. Aksnes also said it was regrettable that the statement had apparently emanated from the Institute.

Aksnes goes on to explain that a meteor capable of a Hiroshima-like impact would almost completely burn up as it entered Earth's atmosphere, and that the remnants would hit the earth far too slowly - though impacts of that intensity have of course occurred. He estimates the North Troms impact to have been comparable to "a powerful conventional bomb".

Source: Aftenpost 15/6/06

Edited June 15, 2006 by Waspie_Dwarf