[meteorite-list] Articles - Berthoud

Tue Oct 12 07:41:10 EDT 2004

http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3247775,00.html

Berthoud meteorite rocks scientists

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
October 12, 2004

BOULDER - Out of a clear blue sky, a bit of space history as old as the 
solar system and no bigger than a softball slammed into the soft, wet 
earth beside a Berthoud family's home Oct. 5.

John Whiteis saw light and a little bit of dirt move. His wife, Meghan, 
saw a dark streak. Their 19-year-old son, Casper, heard something like this:

"Wsssssssshh. Thud!"

"We were kind of trying to figure out what we had just witnessed," said 
John Whiteis, a former auto mechanic and self-described Star Trek fan.

At first he thought it might be a piece of a passing plane. But there 
were none overhead.

Maybe a model rocket launched by a neighbor, they wondered. Nah.

A few moments passed before the family realized what they had just seen: 
a shiny, black meteorite plunging at more than 100 mph into a pasture, 
just 75 feet from their home.

Scientists say meteorites pepper the Earth's atmosphere daily, almost 
every hour. Most burn up as "shooting stars." Some land in sizes as 
small as a grain of sand.

The Whiteis family, however, witnessed only the fifth confirmed sighting 
of a meteorite hitting the ground in Colorado since 1924.

On Monday, the family gathered at the University of Coloradoto talk 
about their discovery along with a panel of geologists and astronomers.

Judging by their reactions, it was a close call as to which group was 
more excited by the find: the family or the scientists.

"Isn't this exciting?" CU geologist Steve Mojzsis gushed. "Thank you for 
bringing the meteorite in."

CU planetary scientist Nick Schneider described his reaction when he 
first heard Casper Whiteis' rendition of how the meteorite sounded as it 
landed.

"I got chills up and down my spine hearing that description," Schneider 
said. "I get a zing from this rock."

"This came from outer space. It probably took a million years to get 
here," he added. "If you're feeling a little bit old, just come and 
touch this and it'll put things in perspective."

If not for some furniture the Whiteis family bought at an auction last 
weekend, this meteorite might have fallen to earth unseen.

It rained on Monday, so the furniture stayed in the vehicle. On Tuesday, 
John Whiteis was home from work early, so in came the furniture. And 
down came the meteorite.

It took the family about 25 minutes after impact to locate the meteorite.

A smooth black surface about the size of a golf ball peeked out from 
under the dirt.

John Whiteis turned back to the house to get a shovel. But before he 
could get there, Casper had grabbed a hammer and dug it out of the earth.

By then it was cool to the touch, said Casper, an aeronautics 
engineering student at AIMS Community College, who hopes to study at CU 
some day.

While meteorites have value to collectors and can fetch up to $1 a gram, 
the Whiteis family say their two-pound meteorite is not for sale. 
Instead they plan to let CU scientists study the rock and put it on 
public display.

Scientists at CU also hope to study the meteorite and compile other 
eyewitness accounts of any fireball sightings that day to determine its 
trajectory.

On Saturday, with permission from local property owners, scientists and 
volunteers hope to search up to four square miles of the area around the 
Whiteis home for other fragments.

(photo)

Megan and John Whiteis, of Berthoud, look at a meteorite during a news 
conference Monday at the University of Colorado Discovery Learning 
Center in Boulder. The meteorite landed in their back yard Oct. 5 and 
they are providing it to CU researchers for scientific analysis.

ensslinj at RockyMountainNews.com <mailto:ensslinj at RockyMountainNews.com> 
or 303-892-5291

__________________________________________________________

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2461705,00.html#

DenverPost.com
Article Published: Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Rock of ages lands in couple's backyard

By Katy Human
Denver Post Staff Writer

A time capsule fell into a Berthoud backyard last week.

Megan and John Whiteis walked out their back door on the afternoon of 
Oct. 5 as a softball-sized meteorite streaked over their heads, plunging 
itself into a horse pasture about 100 feet away.

"It sounded like a pretty good- sized model rocket, only like it was 
going down instead of going up," said Megan Whiteis. "Then it hit ... 
with a pretty good thud."

Colorado scientists and others are now probing the stony meteorite - one 
of only five in the state's recorded history ever to be seen in the sky 
and then found on the ground - for information about the Earth's birth.

"Meteorites are the leftovers, the table scraps from the solar system 
that tell us about our origins 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets 
formed," said Steve Mojzsis, a University of Colorado geologist.

The meteorite is scientifically valuable for a variety of reasons, 
including its rare composition - only about 5 percent of all meteorites 
that fall to Earth are composed of the lava-like material found in this 
one, Mojzsis said.

He speculated that it might have broken off Vesta, an asteroid about 325 
miles across that lies in the belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Also, the meteorite may still be emitting gases that were trapped inside 
because of the chill of space, said Scott Palo, an aerospace engineer at 
CU who is overseeing scientific study of the meteorite. Those gases 
could help scientists understand how our own planet - essentially a 
collection of meteorites that clumped together - generated its 
atmosphere, Palo said.

Moreover, he said, he hopes scientists will be able to reproduce the 
object's trajectory through the atmosphere, to better understand where 
it came from. During the past several years, many fireballs have 
streaked through Western skies in early October, possibly because of 
their location in space relative to Earth.

The meteorite may be part of a bigger one that split up in the atmosphere.

Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or 
khuman at denverpost.com .