I would think he would have to be on the ground for a 'meteorite' to hit him. Maybe a meteoroid on the way to becoming a meteorite could possibly hit him while still in flight.

Regards,

Ray

I would think he would have to be on the ground for a 'meteorite' to hit him. Maybe a meteor on the way to becoming a meteorite could possibly hit him while still in flight.

 

Regards,

 

Ray

According to Hubblesite-

"Most of us probably have seen meteors or shooting stars. A meteor is the flash of light that we see in the night sky when a small chunk of interplanetary debris burns up as it passes through our atmosphere. "Meteor" refers to the flash of light caused by the debris, not the debris itself.

 

The debris is called a meteoroid. A meteoroid is a piece of interplanetary matter that is smaller than a kilometer and frequently only millimeters in size. Most meteoroids that enter the Earth's atmosphere are so small that they vaporize completely and never reach the planet's surface.

If any part of a meteoroid survives the fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is called a meteorite. Although the vast majority of meteorites are very small, their size can range from about a fraction of a gram (the size of a pebble) to 100 kilograms (220 lbs) or more (the size of a huge, life-destroying boulder).

Asteroids are generally larger chunks of rock that come from the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Comets are asteroid-like objects covered with ice, methane, ammonia, and other compounds that develop a fuzzy, cloud-like shell called a coma and sometimes a visible tail whenever they orbit close to the Sun. "

-------------------------------

I stand corrected & cover my head in shame! METEOROID appears to be the correct term.

january

I'm not meticulous, I'm meticuloid, except on those days, like today, I'm simply meticul.

I am a firm believer that "asteroid" and "hemorroid" are name-reversed!

After all, wouldn't the name of a thing that hurts one's tushie be an "ASSteroid"??

 

Pat☺

  Further to the possibility that Flight 370 could have been brought down by a meteoroid strike - there is the report that a worker on an oil platform offshore from Viet Nam, claimed to have seen a streak of fire, which he thought was a plane on fire- plunging earthward. This sighting occurred at the same time as 370's last radio transmission.

  At the time it was the first clue and was briefly, seriously investigated- until some days later, when new reports claimed military radar had seen a blip west of Malaysia over the Strait of Malacca. 

----------------

 A tiny meteoroid punching through a wing tank like a cannon shell, would likely create a flaming jet of fuel as reported.

  Much other damage would be likely, including depressurization, and perhaps loss of radio comm. Staggering west to reach an adequate runway, 370 might finally have became unflyable and then plunged into jungle terrain- perhaps in either Malaysia or Indonesia (Sumatra?)

A near vertical crash might leave such a small footprint as to be almost undetectable by airborne searchers.

january

 

 

"A tiny meteoroid punching through a wing tank like a cannon shell..."

 

It would have slowed down to freefall speed by the time it reached the plane.  Of course if the plane and the meteoroid collided then the plane's speed would itself be enough to cause major damage to the plane.

Sorry guys and gals, but this thread, which I gather was supposed to be about a fun Youtube video, has now just diverged into teh stoopid.

Sorry guys and gals, but this thread, which I gather was supposed to be about a fun Youtube video, has now just diverged into teh stoopid.

 

 

Agreed,

 

If anyone thinks it is plausible that MH370 was brought down by a Meteorite, or a Skydiver, or a meteorite bounced off a skydiver sending the skydiver into the right engine and then the meteorite felt bad for that so it proceeded to enter the aircraft in the cargo door, then attempted to gain access to the flight deck where the meteorite tried to save the day by landing it at Scott Base where that aircraft has been this entire time.....That could be discussed in this thread right here:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/436839-malaysian-flight-370/

 

Otherwise this thread is about a meteorite and a skydiver, what are the odds, or was this event even real or another April Fools Day hoax....nothing to do with MH370

"A tiny meteoroid punching through a wing tank like a cannon shell..."

 

It would have slowed down to freefall speed by the time it reached the plane.  Of course if the plane and the meteoroid collided then the plane's speed would itself be enough to cause major damage to the plane.

Meteoroids enter our upper atmosphere at speeds of 10-70 km / second- that is 36000 km/hr at the slow end of the range.

Those that survive to earth are travelling at a few hundred km / hr.

The atmosphere is pretty thin at 35000 ft where Fl 370 was reported, so a meteoroid is still moving along fast enough to do a lot of damage to an aluminum object in its path! Slowed to perhaps 5-35 km / second?

A rifle bullet by contrast has a muzzle velocity in the vicinity of 2600 FEET/ second.

january

Again. We are all shocked by MH370. But that doesn't mean every thread on Avsim has to be turned into MH370. After a month of this some of us need a break from it.

 

Discuss MH370 in the appropriate thread

A little research says that perhaps 19,000 meteorites of over 3.5 oz. are intercepted by Earth each day.

Earth acquires about 100 tons of dust sized micro meteorites daily.

A few each day, are the size of a baseball or basketball. And it's said that once a week or so, earth is hit by a rock the size of a car!

So remember that, the next time you are sipping a cool one at 40,000 ft. !!!

january

Personally, I think if a meteor the size of a car crashed into earth once a week we'd hear about it a lot more

 

If you're going to worry about something when flying a meteor should be quite low on the list I imagine

If this is a April fools hoax it is a good one. If it is not then what? Imagine the risk of skydiving - jump from the plane and get shot out of the sky by a rock. That would add up to a whole lot of bad days all compressed into one. Anyone care to calculate the odds off that happening?

 

Mel

Personally, I think if a meteor the size of a car crashed into earth once a week we'd hear about it a lot more

 

 

Depends where.

Quote from the Napa Valley Patch news- "A meteor size of a car hit the Bay area Oct 2012. Likely hit earth around Martinez Hills and was roughly size of a car when it broke up over Bay area."

The operative language should be "crashed into EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE".  Very few car sized meteoroids would actually reach ground intact.

 

Scientists are revising estimates of frequency of earth hits by factors of up to 3 times previously believed. No reason to think the original video is hoaxed- but should be examined by a video cam expert.

january

Mebull asks what are the odds of a skydiver being hit by a meteorite?

 

In 1996, two Columbia U professors- Hailey & Helfand (astronomy and physics) calculated the odds as -

 Of all commercial flights airborne at any moment, odds are "1 in 10 that one could be knocked from the sky by a meteoric impact."

With fewer (& smaller target) skydivers airborne, the odds are considerably better in favour of skydiver survival!

january

 

 

In 1996, two Columbia U professors- Hailey & Helfand (astronomy and physics) calculated the odds as -

Of all commercial flights airborne at any moment, odds are "1 in 10 that one could be knocked from the sky by a meteoric impact."

 

We need to see the original article.  It looks like they're trying to claim that 10% of ALL commercial aircraft are lost to meteoric strike.

 

Hook