[meteorite-list] 22 Years Ago Today: Peekskill Meteorite Hit Car

[Ron Baalke]

http://ehstoday.com/environment/throwback-thursday-there-was-no-way-prevent-famous-fall

Throwback Thursday: There Was No Way to Prevent this Famous Fall

Thousands of people in the eastern United States saw and heard the greenish 
Peekskill meteorite as it flashed through the night sky, and one witness 
said that it crackled like a very loud sparkler."

Josh Cable
EHS Today
October 9, 2014
 
On Oct. 9, 1992, a meteorite hurtled through space, streaked into the 
earth's atmosphere and - by the hand of fate - smashed into the trunk 
of a 1980 Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, N.Y.

All accidents and injuries are preventable, as the popular saying goes. 
But sometimes - despite our best efforts to live safely - the universe 
throws a curveball that we never saw coming.

On Oct. 9, 1992, that proverbial curveball was a meteorite that hurtled 
through space, streaked into the earth's atmosphere and - by the hand 
of fate - smashed into the trunk of a 1980 Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, 
N.Y. The meteorite plunged to the earth in a dazzling fireball, startling 
fans at a high school football game and slamming into the Chevy Malibu 
at 164 mph.

According to the History Channel's website:

"On this day in 1992, 18-year-old Michelle Knapp is watching television 
in her parents' living room in Peekskill, N.Y., when she hears a thunderous 
crash in the driveway. Alarmed, Knapp ran outside to investigate. What 
 she found was startling, to say the least: a sizeable hole in the rear 
end of her car, an orange 1980 Chevy Malibu; a matching hole in the gravel 
driveway underneath the car; and in the hole, the culprit: what looked 
like an ordinary, bowling-ball-sized rock. It was extremely heavy for 
its size (it weighed about 28 pounds), shaped like a football and warm 
to the touch; also, it smelled vaguely of rotten eggs. The next day, a 
curator from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City 
confirmed that the object was a genuine meteorite."

Thousands of people in the eastern United States saw and heard the greenish 
Peekskill meteorite as it flashed through the night sky, and one witness 
"said that it crackled like a very loud sparkler," according to history.com.

Scientists later concluded that the Peekskill meteorite was a fragment 
of a larger stone that broke as it entered Earth's atmosphere. Knapp's 
driveway was the final stop on a harrowing journey that began in the main 
asteroid belt in space, between Jupiter and Mars.  

Fortunately, no one was injured, and the story had a happy ending for 
Knapp: She sold the Malibu - which she'd just bought for $300 - to a meteorite 
collector for $10,000.