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Wingsuited skydiver in meteorite near miss.
It does just look like someone threw a rock at him, though.
One more thing to add to the risk assessment.
[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/10742854/Meteorite-narrowly-misses-Norwegian-skydiver.html ]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/10742854/Meteorite-narrowly-misses-Norwegian-skydiver.html[/url]
Somewhere on a cloud, a deity and his mates are cheering and reaching for another rock...
Um.... surely a meteorite would be going very much faster and burning brightly? I smell a rat here.
So that's why skydiving's dangerous!
Um.... surely a meteorite would be going very much faster and burning brightly? I smell a rat here.
Not necessarily. It could have burned out thousands of feet higher.
the rock will have slowed to it's terminal velocity (in air) having burned off a portion of it's mass entering atmosphere at a higher speed.
Somewhere on a cloud, a deity and his mates are cheering and reaching for another rock...
yip "black phase" of descent, still 'kin hot and 'kin fast
Um.... surely a meteorite would be going very much faster and burning brightly?
Depends really. When they come in from space they are going ridiculously fast. They heat up a lot of course as they suddenly find themselves surrounded by air, but they also slow down. Depending on the angle they come in at they enter the atmosphere more or less quickly. If they heat up too fast and are big enough the outer bits will expand a lot before the inner part gets hot so the difference in stress causes it to explode; if it just glances then it'll be hot for a long time and possibly burn up; if it's big enough and doesn't explode then it'll burn up a bit but given that it's slowing down all the time there'll be enough left to slow down to a few hundred mph where the air friction won't be enough to keep it burning up.
Also depends what it's made of - rocky ones are more likely to explode (like stones in a fire) due to the temperature and consequent stress differences, but some meteorites are made of iron so they are strong and flexible enough and can conduct heat internally well enough to not explode - like metal in a fire.
These things often hit the ground, of course so they must survive entry.