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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Apr 24, 2012 - 06:30am PT
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saw somthing last night on yahoo about it actualy being sone kind of stealth plane?
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Bill Mc Kirgan
Trad climber
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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Apr 24, 2012 - 08:05am PT
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dig the attribution for this quote
DUDE! I heard a crazy loud boom and felt my house shake in Tahoe City.
local bro brah
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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Apr 24, 2012 - 10:16am PT
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i knew that god was in a wiley mood when,
that morning i was half a pitch into my day,
the clock was still limping thru the 7 oclock hour.
im at sugarloaf, climbing pony express,
which at this hour is tucked cool into the moring shade
behind the mountain.
suddenly my dawn light
explodes into bright warmth,
like someone gathered sunlight in a mirror
and showered me with it.
so i look back over my shoulder, what-the-f*#k like,
i see an orange blazing ball about the size of a quater
slice the sky wide open.
sweet, im showered now and i have one less duty
before bed.
a minute or so later,
one thunderous boom of a magnitude i've never before heard
ignites my dormant ears
and the mountain shakes in excitement,
i contemplate mid move
"should go down and check if the world is
ending?"
but i figure the end of the world can
wait till i finish my two pitches.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 24, 2012 - 11:07am PT
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On Sunday morning I was driving through Nevada from Indian Creek. Just before dawn my friend and I saw a huge 'shooting star' coming down to the west. I wonder if this was the one...
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corniss chopper
climber
breaking the speed of gravity
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Apr 24, 2012 - 02:43pm PT
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RA - Yes that's true, but any angle is OK for reentering the atmosphere
unsuccessfully .
How these meteors ignore FAA air space restrictions all the time without someone getting fired is very suspicious.
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michaeld
Sport climber
Sacramento
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Apr 24, 2012 - 02:49pm PT
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There was a Hypersonic glider that crashed after it's skin started to peal off going around Mach 20 (3,500 degree Fahrenheit temps) in the ocean. It could have most likely been one of those. From New York to Los Angelas in 12 minutes. Pretty fast...
Either way, pretty nifty whatever it was.
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NMR
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Apr 24, 2012 - 02:52pm PT
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Rock!
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 24, 2012 - 03:01pm PT
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did you f*#k it?
Moved away too fast :(
Next time.....
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aguacaliente
climber
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Apr 24, 2012 - 03:05pm PT
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They estimate the mass of the re entering object based on brightness of fireball, length and so on. This one was estimated 70 metric tons, and then they say "rock the size of a minivan" so the punters can picture it. So for it to be a spy plane or other woo-woo, it would have to be a really freaking heavy plane.
(I think it might be even more unlikely because a plane or satellite debris is less dense and would fragment/burn up higher it the atmosphere and make less of an audible boom, but I'm not as sure about that.)
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corniss chopper
climber
breaking the speed of gravity
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Apr 24, 2012 - 03:36pm PT
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Your everyday meteor vaporizes 60 miles up and we don't hear them
because of that distance and because they are small.
Note: you would definitely hear grain of sand sized meteor going past your head at 30 miles per second. Its the distance that they normally burn up at that allows us not to live in a world hearing the constant supersonic crack of rifle bullets (meteors).
Sunday's was so big it was able to get deep into
the atmosphere and close to our ears, enabling people to hear the sonic boom.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Apr 24, 2012 - 04:16pm PT
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Mach 20 is nearly 25,000 kph, which is about 80% of LEO velocity. Something might reenter at that speed or more, but would very quickly be slowed.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 30, 2012 - 11:07am PT
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Today's LA Times:
Meteor hunters strike pay dirt
A different kind of rush hits California's Gold Country after the recent shower of rocks from space, which scientists crave and can fetch $1,000 a gram.
By Diana Marcum, Los Angeles Times
April 30, 2012, 1:29 a.m.
COLOMA-LOTUS VALLEY, Calif In the week since a fireball shot across the sky and exploded, scattering a rare type of meteorite over California's Gold Country, these hills have drawn a new rush of treasure seekers.
Once again there are lively saloons, fortune hunters jockeying for prime spots and astounding tales of luck including that of Brenda Salveson, a local who found a valuable space rock while walking her dog Sheldon, named after the theoretical physicist on the TV show "The Big Bang Theory."
It started April 22, Earth Day, with a blazing streak across a morning sky and a sonic boom that the next day had the older women in the "Gentle Stretching to Beautiful Music" class at Sierra Ballet comparing notes on how hard their windows shook.
PHOTOS: Meteorite found in Coloma
Eight hundred miles away, while windows were still rattling, Robert Ward in Prescott, Ariz., was getting alerts. A 35-year-old professional meteorite hunter and dealer, he pays for tips and keeps a bag packed, ready to go anywhere in the world to chase a meteorite.
On Tuesday, after 16 hours of driving, he scanned a parking lot in Lotus in the pre-dawn not knowing what type of rock he was seeking. But when he spotted a dark space pebble, he immediately recognized it as carbonaceous chondrite, meteorites containing water and carbon the type scientists long to study for insights into how life began on Earth and possibly in other places.
"I was trembling," Ward said. "It's the rarest of the rare. It's older than the sun. It holds the building blocks of life."
The rush was on. The meteorites are invaluable to science but on the open market can also fetch $1,000 a gram, or more for larger, pristine pieces.
In Vancouver, Canada, Paul Gessler, a part-time meteorite hunter, was readying for a halibut fishing tournament when he read about Ward's find on a hobbyists Twitter feed. He took his fishing rod back to the house and told his wife he was driving to California.
At the NASA Ames Research Center north of San Jose, Beverly Girten, deputy director in charge of the center's experiments on the International Space Station, announced she was going to Coloma. Her boss reminded her of a conference call about a $40-million budget. Girten said meteorites with organic compounds could prove more important to science.
In the Gold Rush town of Rescue (elevation and population both 1,400), Salveson, a wife and mother of two, read a local news article about the meteorites. The area scattered with them, about three miles wide and 10 miles long, included Henningsen Lotus Park, where she walks her dog every morning. She noted what to look for: a rock that seemed out of place different from anything around it. It would be dark and delicate.
On Wednesday, near the end of her stroll with Sheldon, Salveson picked up a rock the size of a spool of thread that seemed to match the description.
She walked over to a group with metal detectors.
"I opened my hand and they all let out a collective gasp," she said.
The geologists, as they turned out to be, wrapped the 17-gram stone in foil and told Salveson to get it into a bank vault.
A few minutes before, a firefighter had stopped to search at the park on his way to work and found a 2-gram meteorite in less than 20 minutes. A dealer paid him $2,000 on the spot.
Before going to the bank, Salveson made one stop: Rescue Elementary School. She had her children Linnea, 10, and Tommy, 6 and their classmates put their hands behind their backs. She pulled back the foil just a little and told them to look at perhaps the oldest thing anyone has ever seen.
Girten believes that should any of those children grow up to take a college earth science class, they might study this meteorite. Until now, the most studied meteorite has been the Murchison, found after a witnessed shower in Australia in 1969. All indications are that the Sutter's Mill meteorite will replace it as the meteorite most known by name to anyone in science.
"We want to learn about this asteroid," said Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer and senior research scientist at the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and the NASA Lunar Science Institute. "This is scientific gold."
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
Meteor hunters strike pay dirt
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A GRAND PER GRAM? THAT'S BETTER THAN SMACK!
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Apr 30, 2012 - 11:27am PT
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Pretty amazing convergence for this "witnessed" Meteorite fall and finally fragments being discovered . . .
April 22, 2012: Earth Day
Coloma, CA: The site of Sutter's Mill and John Marshall's discovery of Gold that led to the world famous California Gold Rush starting in 1848-1849
Meteorite Material discovered/found there in Coloma, CA.
Pretty cool.
It doesn't look like an Iron or Stony-Iron, so my question is . . .
Is it a Stony, Chondrite (not so rare) or Achondrite (very rare and from known planetary bodies, such as Asteroid 4 Vesta, Lunar, Mars, or perhaps even Mercury) ?
Probably a Stony Chondrite, is my best guess. I would like to see fragments up close and microscope thinsections to know for sure.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 30, 2012 - 11:29am PT
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Good guess, Klims, especially if you read the article! :-)
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Apr 30, 2012 - 11:58am PT
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-meteorite-search-20120501,0,5730445.story
On Tuesday, after 16 hours of driving, he scanned a parking lot in Lotus in the pre-dawn not knowing what type of rock he was seeking. But when he spotted a dark space pebble, he immediately recognized it as carbonaceous chondrite, meteorites containing water and carbon the type scientists long to study for insights into how life began on Earth and possibly in other places.
"I was trembling," Ward said. "It's the rarest of the rare. It's older than the sun. It holds the building blocks of life."
OK, I finally read the article. It's a Carbonaceous Chondrite. Very rare, and almost as rare as known planetary Achondrites. They are loaded with organics. Pretty cool. These pre-date our Solar System usually when radiometrically dated.
I have some fragments of very well-known Carbonaceous Chondrites in my personal collection. Probably have to purchase some of this "Coloma" also. Could find some, but everyone is gonna be there looking. It will turn into a zoo for sometime.
Rarity of meteorites:
All Carbonaceous Chondrites = 2.49% of all known meteoritic material
(CM Carbonaceous Chondrites = 0.72% of all known meteoritic material, still not as rare as planetary achondrites)
All Achondrites = 2.71% of all known meteoritic material
Total Lunar (achondrite) = 0.08% of all known meteoritic material
Total Mars (achondrite) = 0.07% of all known meteoritic material
Meteorites from the Moon (Lunar) and Mars are still far rarer.
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Cross-posting from the mining asteroids thread . . . relevant. Very relevant.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1807660/Hey-thats-MY-gold-up-there-OT
May 1, 2012 - 01:11pm PT
Interesting opinion piece at WIRED.COM regarding the legality of mineral claims on celestial objects.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/opinion-asteroid-mining/
DosXX,
That is a very interesting legal opinion. The arguement would be in favor of the astro-miners extracting from an asteroid or planetary body. Perhaps not the whole asteroid (maybe or maybe not?), and certainly not the whole planetary body, but taking portions of it and claiming ownership seems to agree with space law.
Seems this can also can be applied to meteorite ownership issues found on Earth to some degree. Finders keepers. There is an arguement to be made here, while also considering the land ownership issues.
However, they fail to consisder who actually owns all of it and throughout the Universe without dispute -- GOD. And GOD gives to whom he wills. So who's going to challenge GOD's ownership? Lol.
Psalm 24 :1,2
The King of Glory Entering Zion.
A Psalm of David.
"1 The earth is the LORDS, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. 2 For He has founded it upon the seas And established it upon the rivers."
Deuteronomy 10:14
To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
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