[meteorite-list] The Story of the Colby Meteorites

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.wsaw.com/home/headlines/8581532.html

Eye on the Sky: Colby's Visitors From Outer Space - the Story of the
Colby Meteorites

Katie O'Brien
WSAW
July 18, 2007

On a dark night, if you look up at the sky, you may see a streak of
light as a meteor flashes through the atmosphere.

Meteoroids, which are often fragments of comets or asteroids, become
meteors once they enter earth's atmosphere.

If they hit the ground, they are called meteorites.

People often see meteors flash across the night sky, but on rare
occasions, people actually see them fall to earth.

That's what happened on July 4, 1917 in Colby.

Around 6:30 p.m., loud explosions were heard with the fall of two
meteors, and according to the book "Colby Wisconsin Centennial," some
people came out expecting to see a Zeppelin dropping bombs.

Two meteorites, possibly from the same meteor, struck at Colby.

One weighed about 75 pounds.

"It was west of the Zion Lutheran Church, but more-so way in the field,
not where the church was," says Pearl Vorland of the Colby Historical
Society.

The larger of the two fell in a pasture, and was embedded about five
feet into the ground.

This meteorite was very cold and frost formed on it after it was dug out
of the ground.

The combined weight of the meteorites was more than 200 pounds.

Fragments of the meteorite still exist in the University of
Wisconsin-Madison's Geology Museum, and the Milwaukee Public Museum.

If you'd like to see a meteor shower, there's a good one coming up in
August which you can watch for in a future "Eye on the Sky" segment.