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(meteorobs) Claimed Leonid Recovery




[Thought some might enjoy this bizarre tale.The
one on the left in the top photo on the site
that's linked looks like quartz to me.  t.]



> A memento from the sky
> Family nearly hit by possible meteorite from
> Leonid display
> BY LU ANN FRANKLIN Times Correspondent

>
http://www.thetimesonline.com/index.pl/article?id=1192720
> 
> HIGHLAND -- When Laura Yuran and her
> 11-year-old son, Jonathon, awoke at 4
> a.m. Sunday to watch the Leonid meteor shower
> outside the family's home in
> Highland, they never expected to be a target
> for space debris.
> 
> About a half hour into their sky gazing mother
> and son began hearing
> something that sounded like hail falling. A
> short time later, those
> hail-like objects started pelting the pair.
> Just as Laura walked toward the
> house to get her husband, Tom, a chunk of rock
> fell from the sky, slamming
> down to her left near where she had been
> standing just moments before.
> 
> "It went, 'Boom!' and I screamed," Laura
> recalled. "Part of it hit the
> driveway and the second part was embedded in
> the ground. I was afraid to
> touch it."
> 
> Laura's scream brought Tom outside. Locating
> the rocks with a flashlight, he
> picked them up, finding them cold to the touch.
> He had to pull the smaller
> stone out of the lawn.
> 
> "It's beautiful," Laura said of the family's
> newest treasure.
> 
> Jim Seevers, an astronomer from Chicago's Adler
> Planetarium, said the rocks
> are most likely meterorites from the Leonid
> meteor shower. The rust color is
> "the fusion crust," he said, which is typical
> of a meteorite that has been
> seared by the earth's atmosphere.
> 
> "The rock probably chipped off and the shiny,
> silver they see is the
> inside," Seevers said. "It's most likely iron
> and nickel."
> 
> Although Tom Yuran was concerned that the rocks
> might be radioactive, Seever
> said they are basically rocks mixed with metal,
> such as bits of iron. The
> rarest of all meteorites are composed of
> carbon, another common element in
> the universe, and "look like a hunk of
> charcoal," Seevers said.
> 
> The astronomer said meterorites are slowed down
> by the earth's atmosphere
> much like a parachute slows down a skydiver. At
> 60 miles up in the
> atmosphere, the rock then begins a fall to
> earth. Its size and the speed it
> is traveling will determine how hard it hits
> and if it will become embedded
> in the Earth.
> 
> "If it had hit me, I could have been killed,"
> Laura Yuran said. "We hid
> under the awning on our porch because we were
> afraid of more rocks falling
> down." 
> 
> Seevers recommended that the Yurans allow the
> geology staff at Chicago's
> Field Museum of Natural History to analyze the
> rock.
> 
> "We don't have a lab here at the Adler
> Planetarium," he said. "The staff at
> the museum's meteorite lab will be able to tell
> them the rock's
> composition."
> 
> On Monday afternoon, the Yurans contacted Dr.
> Menache Wadhwa, the curator of
> the Field Museum's meteorite collection, for an
> opinion.
> 
> "She wants us to bring her a small piece of it
> on Wednesday morning. She
> said we're the only ones anywhere who have
> reported falling meteorites from
> the Leonid meteor shower," Tom said.
> 
> In fact, after talking with Wadhwa, Jonathon
> began searching for more pieces
> of the meteorite. He quickly located two more
> small rocks that weigh about
> one ounce each.
> 
> Laura said until the rocks are analyzed, she's
> trying to play hostess to the
> excited neighborhood children whom Jonathon has
> invited over to see the
> space debris. Eventually she hopes to put the
> objects in a display case and
> give it to her son who collects rocks.
> 
> The next time the Yuran family could gather to
> view the Leonid meteor shower
> is in 2034. That's when the comet
> Temple-Tuttle, which causes the Leonid
> display, will pass by Earth again.
> 
> "We really enjoyed watching it, with the blue
> lights and long tails," Laura
> said. "If it wasn't for Jonathon setting his
> alarm and waking us up, we
> wouldn't have seen it."


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