One dies as meteorite falls in India.

tidbit · Feb 7, 2016

A meteorite that fell in Vellore India killed one man and wounded three others. This was the second meteorite that has fallen in the vicinity since January 26. Witnesses heard a loud blast, and a water tank, windows on houses, and screens on buses blew apart. They said the remember seeing something falling from the sky.

DarkDaimon · Feb 7, 2016

Here's a link for those that want to read more: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities...meteorite-falls-in-vellore/article8204671.ece

contrails · Feb 7, 2016

Considering the number of meteorites that fall to Earth each year, it was only a matter of time.

Deckel · Feb 7, 2016

contrails said: ↑

Considering the number of meteorites that fall to Earth each year, it was only a matter of time.
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I think it happened once before in Australia.

contrails · Feb 13, 2016

Apparently this is not what it appears to be.

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/ne...ath-in-200-years-probably-not-heres-why/63449

waltky · Feb 17, 2016

Meteorites in Antarctica, big ol' chickens inna Arctic...

Meteorites 'buried in ice' by the Sun
Wed, 17 Feb 2016 - A study suggests there could be a layer of iron-rich meteorites hidden just beneath the Antarctic ice.

New research suggests there could be a layer of iron-rich meteorites hidden just under the Antarctic ice. The churning of glaciers spews many space rocks out on to the surface in Antarctica, but compared to elsewhere on Earth, few of them are made of iron. Based on modelling and lab experiments, scientists say the missing metallic rocks might be burying themselves, by melting the ice as sunlight heats them. To prove their idea, the team now wants to look for the rocks themselves. "The study is proposing a hypothesis - these samples should be there. We just have to go and locate them," said Dr Katherine Joy from the University of Manchester, a co-author of the paper published in Nature Communications.

Antarctica is one of the best places to hunt for meteorites

Antarctica is known by meteorite specialists as a fruitful hunting ground, because the rocks are collected from their landing sites by glacial flows and transported to concentrated dumping-grounds. "The great thing about Antarctica is they fall on the ice, and then the ice progressively moves away from the plateau. And where it hits these barriers, along the Transantarctic Mountains, the ice gets moved up," Dr Joy told the BBC. "So this continuous conveyor belt has delivered meteorites from the interior fall sites to the 'meteorite stranding zones' for the past couple of million years or so." Among this Antarctic haul, however, researchers have noticed that iron-rich meteorites - whether partly or wholly made of the metal - are surprisingly scarce, compared to the percentage collected in other places around the world. Dr Joy and her colleagues think they may have discovered why.

Wholly iron and stony-iron meteorites, like this one, are less common in Antarctica than elsewhere

They froze two small meteorites of similar size and shape, one rocky and one iron, inside blocks of ice and then heated them using a lamp to mimic the Sun. Both meteorites, on repeated trials, melted their way downward through the ice block. But because the metal conducts heat more efficiently, the iron meteorite sank further, faster. The researchers then expanded that observation using a mathematical simulation. Their model showed that this Sun-driven burrowing would be enough to cause iron-rich rocks to sink so much during the long summer days that, over the course of the year, it would account fairly precisely for the lack of iron space rocks welling their way to the surface of the Antarctic "stranding zones". "The idea is, they never make it to the surface. They're forever trapped, 50-100cm or so below the ice," Dr Joy explained. That means, if the team's findings are to be believed, that the hunt is on.

Failed planets
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See also:

Giant, Flightless Bird Once Roamed Arctic
February 16, 2016 - The icy cold realm of the Arctic is not where one would expect to find giant birds, but researchers say they have confirmed the existence of a giant flightless bird that once roamed the area.

Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing say they confirmed the discovery based on a single, fossilized toe of the creature that lived 53 million years ago. The toe was originally found in the 1970s on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, but was only recently “closely examined.” The researchers describe the toe as a “dead ringer” for another fossilized toe bone found in the U.S. state of Wyoming. They are from the foot of a massive bird called Gastornis.

A new study involving CU-Boulder and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has confirmed that a flightless bird weighing several hundred pounds roamed Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic about 50 million years ago.

Gastornis, researchers say, was likely about two meters in height and likely weighed several hundred kilograms. The bird was originally thought to be a “fearsome carnivore” but now, it's believed to be a vegan that used its beak to munch on foliage, nuts, seeds and fruit. Gastornis fossils have also been unearthed in Asia and Europe. "We knew there were a few bird fossils from up there, but we also knew they were extremely rare," said CU-Boulder professor Jaelyn Eberle, who co-authored the study.

When Gastornis roamed the Arctic, it was a far different place, with researchers comparing it to the cypress swamps in the Southeastern U.S. Other fossils from Ellesmere Island reveal it was once home to turtles, alligators, primates and other “large hippo-like and rhino-like mammals.” Today, the island is “one of the coldest, driest environments on Earth,” researchers said.

http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-giant-flightless-bird-roamed-arctic-gastornis/3193436.html
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One dies as meteorite falls in India.

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One dies as meteorite falls in India.

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