[meteorite-list] Re: Possible meteorite fall in Northeast Brazil (forwarded message from Wilton Caravalho)

[Mark Van Tomme]

Hi Mark,

Would you please post this message for me.

It seems I am facing a problem with messages I send
which are not being 
posted.

Thanks

Wilton
Message to be posted:


Subject: Do meteorites start fires?

By 7:00 PM, last Monday,  a fireball was seen
"exploding" over a rural 
area 
in Brazil. Next day the Press just aired and wrote
that a meteorite 
felt and 
set at least five fires in a large area close by a
highway.

Until now no fragments of meteorite or space junk has
been found.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I have been at the site and
found only ash, 
burned 
trees and bushes. Local people are searching the area.
One of them 
found a 
"stone with a black coating" which was promptly
photographed and 
published 
by newspapers as a meteorite. I examined a fragment of
that stone and 
found 
that it is just sandstone. No doubt about that: two
geologists also 
have the 
same opinion after examined the sample I got from the
finder. There is 
no 
crater at all. Just a hole 29 cm long and 40 cm deep
where nothing was 
found.

I believe that  meteorites do not start a fire as
Nininger wrote in the 
book 
Ask a question about meteorites (1961, 1969 pages 8
and 9)

"Meteorites do not start fires even when they fall
into some easily 
combustible material such as dry grass or straw.
Meteorites do not 
reach the 
ground in blazing condition.* (The one exception to
this rule is the 
extremely rare crater-forming meteorite which is so
huge that it 
resists the 
braking effect of atmospheric friction and explodes
upon reaching the 
earth."

I will visit the site again next Sunday looking for
evidences that the 
fires 
people saw just after the fireball almost silent
"explosion" were not 
started by a meteorite fall.

Is there any occurence of meteorites which started
fires?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Van Tomme" <markvantomme at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:48 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Possible meteorite fall in
Northeast Brazil




Hi all,below is the link to a brazilian site reporting
on a possible meteorite fall yesterday in the town of
Santo Antônio de Jesus,State of Bahia,Northeast
Brazil.
It's in Portuguese sorry but it basically says that a
"fireball" has created a crater and caused panic among
the population and that the local astronomical club
was looking for samples.

http://noticias.terra.com.br/brasil/interna/0,,OI908174-EI306,00.html

Regards

Mark Van Tomme


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