[HN Gopher] Meterorite chunk crashes into house, bedroom, pillow ___________________________________________________________________ Meterorite chunk crashes into house, bedroom, pillow Author : walrus01 Score : 46 points Date : 2021-10-12 21:50 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca) | Diederich wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylacauga_(meteorite) | | The Sylacauga meteorite fell on November 30, 1954, at 12:46 local | time (18:46 UT) in Oak Grove, Alabama, near Sylacauga. It is | commonly called the Hodges meteorite because a fragment of it | struck Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges (1920-1972). | mensetmanusman wrote: | I hope that happens to me some day, I would immediately try to | find out if it was a quasi-crystal! | smarx007 wrote: | I hope you have a dog to wake you up in time to save your head! | tomcam wrote: | What, and sacrifice a pillow? You savage. | Zenst wrote: | What type of pillow can stop a meteorite is what I'm wondering. | Sure the roof may of slowed it enough but for it to still be | intact from that and at that size, it would of been dense to make | it that far without breaking up or burning up and I'd of expected | a more substantial roof would be needed to slow it. Then the | final detail, It would still be pretty darn hot. | | So I'm somewhat sceptical. | MrWiffles wrote: | "Aww, I loosened it for ya!" - Roof | | (Like the wide opening a jar of pickles her husband couldn't) | s5300 wrote: | Don't check the internet tomorrow if it ends up being a | MyPillow. | vnchr wrote: | Sounds like it may have hit the mattress before rolling between | the pillows, and the photo and title are mildly | sensationalizing with hitting the pillow directly. | | > "...I rolled back one of the two pillows I'd been sleeping on | and in between them was the meteorite." | marcodiego wrote: | I won't make numerical estimates here, but we can consider | that: - the piece of meteorite had already | achieved terminal velocity, - most of the remaining | energy was lost on the collision with the layers of the roof | and - final collision was dampened by the pillow, | mattress foam and bed structure. | | By the size of of the object on the photograph, if it has | approximately the same density of earth stones, the story seems | 100% believable. | MrWiffles wrote: | I read this and thought, "damn alien assassins can't even pull | off headshots anymore!" Good thing too, this lady got wicked | lucky! | [deleted] | sydthrowaway wrote: | Do you want Venom? Cause this is how we get Venom. | Archelaos wrote: | Remindes me of that: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylacauga_(meteorite) | xwdv wrote: | Would the rock have had enough force to kill her if she had slept | on that side of the bed that night? | | What a way to go, imagine there could be a rock hurling through | the universe for billions of years waiting to reach its final | destination by crashing into your skull and killing you as you | sleep peacefully. | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | >Would the rock have had enough force to kill her if she had | slept on that side of the bed that night? | | Can a lump of iron kill you if it fell on your head from the | ceiling? Yes, it can. | JadeNB wrote: | Why does the meteorite have the energy to crash through the roof | of the house, but then stop on a pillow (without damage to the | pillow, as far as the picture shows)? | | (I'm not sure why we have this bizarrely sequential headline-- | surely no-one would say "crashes into house, bedroom, pillow" in | conversation--when the actual headline, "Woman rocked awake by | meteorite chunk crashing into her bedroom", seems (if punny) just | fine. But I do like that the article leads with a picture of a | meteorite sitting on a pillow. You know, as proof.) | lovecg wrote: | Speak for yourself. My conversations are specific, detailed, | factual. | amluto wrote: | Flexibility. A roof will apply substantial stopping force to a | fast moving object over a very short distance until the roof | breaks. (And bit more as the broken piece of roof | accelerates.). A pillow or mattress will deform a lot without | breaking, so the smaller stopping force will be applied over a | much larger distance. | | (Energy change = force times distance) | teraflop wrote: | I don't know how much stock we should put in the exact sequence | of events recalled by someone who had just woken up, but it | doesn't seem that implausible to me. | | It's not like the meteorite would have been traveling at | thousands of miles per hour. By the time it got to ground | level, it would have slowed down to its terminal velocity. Some | amount of energy would have been absorbed in its collision with | the roof, and it wouldn't have had time to accelerate very much | in the remaining fraction of a second before coming to rest on | a soft surface. | | By way of comparison, I can easily imagine a dropped bowling | ball going through a roof but not doing much damage to a bed | and pillow. | rkagerer wrote: | True but I actually like the sense of passage conveyed by the | existing title as you picture it closing in on the target. | | Like that rock had a rough night and just wanted someplace soft | to crash. | Zenst wrote: | My thoughts as well and spent some time trying to think of how | and details and it still don't seem to feel right. | | Roof don't look substantial enough to slow something that size | and dare say density enough for it to be finally stopped by a | pillow. Then the entry marks, just don't feel right, given the | speeds and also the temps, I'd expect some entry marks and in a | way, a more cleaner hole perhaps. Then the aspect that it would | still be hot and no pillow would be able to withstand the kinda | heat it would still have. | | Too much of this feels off, so be interesting how those tests | come out. | | Makes me wonder - how hard is it to fake a meteorite? | outworlder wrote: | > Roof don't look substantial enough to slow something that | size and dare say density enough for it to be finally stopped | by a pillow | | Why not? It was in free fall. Wouldn't a rock be similarly | stopped? | | > given the speeds and also the temps | | What speeds? It would have slowed down to terminal velocity | way before reaching the ground. | | What temps? It should be pretty cold by then. The glowing red | hot meteorite on the ground is a Hollywood invention. | | > Makes me wonder - how hard is it to fake a meteorite? | | Depends on who you want to fool. Researchers with access to | equipment? No chance. News organizations? May not be that | difficult. | | > Then the aspect that it would still be hot | | Nope. Not that hot. There's a debate on whether or not it | will even be warm. Probably cool to the touch. | | http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/our-solar-system/75-our- | sol... | Nzen wrote: | Oh. I didn't think I would need to ever point to the 'is it a | meteorite?' [0] flowchart. I guess how hard you have to fake | depends on who you are convincing. Slag can fool your | friends, but anyone who studies or collects meteorites will | probably require some multi stage metallurgical process to | convince. | | [0] https://geoscience.unlv.edu/what-to-do-if-you-think-that- | you... | willcipriano wrote: | Looks like most of the force of the impact was absorbed by | the rafter and then it deflected off into the room. | heavyset_go wrote: | I'm assuming the last layer of ceiling it penetrated slowed it | down enough. A pillow and bed can also absorb the shock better | than something rigid. | | I'd also assume that someone who is in shape can throw a rock | hard enough that it penetrates dry wall easily, yet not | penetrate a pillow. Similar amounts of energy were probably | involved by the time the meteorite had entered the bedroom. | BurningFrog wrote: | I don't think this is a "why" question. | | Apparently it _did_ have the right energy to crash through the | roof but not damage the pillow. | opwieurposiu wrote: | I think this meteor came in a glancing angle and broke up at high | altitude. If it were to come straight down it would have burnt | up, or done a lot more damage. | | The terminal velocity of a baseball is ~95mph, a brick is | ~150mph, so the meteorite must have been slowed down to around | this speed before it hit the roof. It also would have had 4 min | of freefall Canadian airblast to cool it off. | nawgz wrote: | > The terminal velocity of a baseball is ~95mph | | Source? | asdff wrote: | I think the most intriguing aspect of this report is the dog | somehow sensed this meteorite was on its way. | | "she awoke to the sound of her dog barking, giving her a moment's | notice before a rock from outer space hurtled into her bedroom." | jonny_eh wrote: | Perhaps another piece fell nearby just before this one. | skulk wrote: | Maybe a rock hurtling at terminal velocity straight towards | your head (approximately) makes some interesting high frequency | sound waves that only dogs can hear? | radicaldreamer wrote: | Dogs definitely have some sort of "sixth sense" or are very | attuned to the environment. | | Tons of reports of dogs waking their humans prior to impending | but hard to detect dangers such as earthquakes... | lisper wrote: | In the case of earthquakes, dogs can detect compression waves | which travel faster than the stronger and more destructive | transverse waves. In the case of a meteorite it is harder to | imagine a plausible mechanism. As most meteorites are | supersonic, it's not possible for any waves to arrive at | their destination before they do. | | [UPDATE] Reading some of the other comments it occurred to me | that this particular meteorite was probably traveling at | terminal velocity, and was thus sub-sonic. So it's possible a | dog could hear its approach. | outworlder wrote: | > "But the workers had seen a meteorite, or a falling star, | explode and there was a couple of booms" | | Dogs don't really like 'booms'. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-12 23:00 UTC)