Meteorite falls into French woman's yard

A meteor exploded in the night sky over central France and landed in a woman's yard.

A piece of meteorite found in the garden of an unnamed woman. Photo: Vigie-Ciel — A piece of meteorite found in the garden of an unnamed woman. Photo: *Vigie-Ciel*

The fireball, or bolide, that fell to Earth was spotted by hundreds of local residents across France on the night of September 9-10, according to the Fireball Retrieval and Interplanetary Observation Network (FRIPON)/Vigie-Ciel, a citizen science project, according to Newsweek .

While FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel were in the process of estimating where the meteorite had fallen, a woman from the Communes Sauldre and Sologne region in central France contacted them, saying that a meteorite had fallen in her garden. The woman was awakened by a noise during the night and found several rocks in her garden the next morning.

The team went to investigate and found three meteorite fragments in the garden, each weighing about 0.7 kg. According to Sylvain Bouley, president of the French Astronomical Society (SAF), the outer shell of the rock was melted when it passed through the atmosphere, but the inside was clearly visible, containing sparkling pebbles, indicating the presence of metal. All of the above characteristics belong to meteorites. The meteorite fragments in the woman's garden were sent to the Natural History Museum in France for further analysis.

Meteorites are chunks of rock and ice that fall through the Earth's atmosphere and are heated to extreme temperatures as they hit the ground at high speeds. Bouley estimated that the French meteorite was traveling several hundred kilometers per hour when it hit the Earth. "Luckily the homeowner was not injured. There was no crater, but the meteorite shattered the table," Bouley said.

A meteor looks like a bright fireball in the sky if it is larger than average, creating a flash of light. Most meteors vaporize during their fall, with only about 4% of the original object reaching the ground, according to NASA.

"As it passes through the Earth's atmosphere at high speeds (over 12 km/s), it pushes air in front of it, causing it to become superheated (like a shock wave), which causes the surface of the rock to be 'stripped away'. Essentially, the surface layer overheats and evaporates," said Jonti Horner, professor of astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. "This pushes the rock further until friction with the atmosphere slows it to subsonic speeds."

Falling meteorites are unlikely to cause fires in homes or gardens, despite the high temperatures in the air.

An Khang (According to Newsweek )

Source link