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INDIAN AUTHORITIES SAY a falling object that killed a bus driver and injured three others was a meteorite.
If proven, it would be the first such death in recorded history.
Experts said other explanations were possible for the incident, which happened on Saturday in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
The impact of the object left a five-foot-deep crater in the ground, according to the Times of India, and shattered window panes in a nearby building, killing the driver who was walking past.
The object only weighed 11g, the newspaper added, about as heavy as a AAA battery.
Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram said the rock was a “meteorite” — although scientists say this has not yet been proven.
“A meteorite fell at a private engineering college… and claimed the life of a college bus driver,” the chief minister said in a statement, expressing “shock” at the news.
Further tests
SP Rajaguru, assistant professor at the Indian Astrophysics Institute in Bangalore, said the rock could be a meteorite but further tests were needed.
“Most of the meteors never reach the Earth’s surface as they completely vaporise in the atmosphere,” he told AFP by phone.
Hitting the Earth’s surface is very rare and there have been no deaths in recorded history.
Rajaguru said the missile could be debris from a rocket or a space shuttle.
Meteors are particles of dust and rock that usually burn up as they pass through the Earth’s atmosphere. Those that do not burn up completely, surviving the fall to Earth, are known as meteorites.
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Sometimes we forget that we are on a huge rock floating around a fire ball
Maybe that Was the brick from pat mustard milk float
C’mon now Richie, Fr.Ted was a brilliant show and still is funny but it was 20 years ago… think its time to move on and let it go.
That’s mad Ted
Thanks for the history lesson Ajax
Fup off Jax ya pedraphile
fuppin’ backstard
That’s it! I’m callin’ the fuppin’ man! HEY! HEYYY!!!
Ya grasspole
Cup o’tea, anybody?
Looks like a piece of black pudding.
The photo is of a Carbonaceous Chondrite.
It is the older than the earth.
It’s actually NWA 480 – A martian shergottite meteorite – http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/nwa480.html
It’s a martian shergottite meteorite – NWA 480 & was found in morocco.
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/nwa480.html
Thanks pat.
Plenty of close calls with meteorites for bus drivers in around Ballymun, Ballyfermot tallaght etc
Meteorites are worth a fortune very often and finding them is the holy grail.
Not much good if they land on your head though
Pity it wasnt enda
The Tunguska impact on 30th June 1908 certainly killed people. They were never found.
Quote:
“It is estimated the asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere traveling at a speed of about 33,500 miles per hour. During its quick plunge, the 220-million-pound space rock heated the air surrounding it to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit. At 7:17 a.m. (local Siberia time), at a height of about 28,000 feet, the combination of pressure and heat caused the asteroid to fragment and annihilate itself, producing a fireball and releasing energy equivalent to about 185 Hiroshima bombs”.
Not proven to be a meteor though…
India has so many bus drivers if you threw a rock you’d hit one.
All of a sudden
A lump of black puddin
Came flying tru the air
So the glass killer him…not the Meteor?
My head was in outer space.. And then it hit me..
Good job you weren’t bending over then lol.
What happened terminal velocity?
I really should have looked that up first!
Aeschylus is also reputed to have had an unusual death.
I think I google that…
*Killed
There is a recorded death of a Mr Woods a miller, due to meteorite stone in County Offaly in the 19th Century http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000355184/Details
I could be from the consignment of them meteorites that Jerry and the gang shipped in a few years ago!
What an excuse….lol
Reminds me of black pudding, you wouldn’t think it was Iron Nickel alloy, from the centre of a planet to end up killing a man, it seems a crazy thought?
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