I don't know why everyone is assuming it was so close. It looked further away from the dude to me... i'd guess ~100 feet or more.
In any case, given camera optics, you can only solve for size or distance given the other.
Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
71–80 of 119 posts
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#72I'm... skeptical. If you look at the frames of the meteorite falling, it looks like each frame has the fragment at about 3 feet from its last position. If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?), that's 180 f/s speed or 122mph. That seems really slow for a rock flying into the atmosphere from space, and far slower than a rock would have to be going for it to "cut him in half." My guess: a rock that fell off the underc…
$ If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?), that's 180 f/s speed or 122mph. That seems really slow for a rock flying into the atmosphere from space, and far slower than a rock would have to be going for it to "cut him in half."
A slushie travelling at 120mph into a windshield: http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/soda-cu...
Regarding the speed, the atmosphere will slow the rock down considerably, aerodynamic drag is proportional to the square of the speed.
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#73This site has more information. It's in Norwegian, but there are some charts and graphics which give an idea how they've been trying to locate the rock by analyzing the video and checking wind speed records.
http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1329
They estimate the speed of the falling rock at 280km/h (vertical) and the speed of the guy in the wingsuit at 148km/h (at 37 degr). It seems like they're still uncertain about the exact speed, though. The wind speed was about 5m/s.
One document in the video suggests the altitude that the rock passed him was 1200m... so the rock would have hit the ground 15 seconds later at 280km/h
The research website mentioned in the article is linked on that page, but it isn't up yet.
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#74I'm... skeptical. If you look at the frames of the meteorite falling, it looks like each frame has the fragment at about 3 feet from its last position. If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?), that's 180 f/s speed or 122mph. That seems really slow for a rock flying into the atmosphere from space, and far slower than a rock would have to be going for it to "cut him in half." My guess: a rock that fell off the underc…
Agreed. When is the last time you saw a bullet videotaped on a normal camera? This is moving 10x faster than a bullet?
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#75April Fool?
Presumably the downvote means, "No, but I'm not going to tell you why"? Any Nordic types following this story?
This was published by NRK, the Norwegian equivalent of BBC on April 3rd, and the guys in the video seem sincere. I suppose it could convievably be an elaborate April fools prank by the skydivers if they talked to NRK on the 1st, I suppose. But I suppose they would have come clean by now.
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#76I'm... skeptical. If you look at the frames of the meteorite falling, it looks like each frame has the fragment at about 3 feet from its last position. If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?), that's 180 f/s speed or 122mph. That seems really slow for a rock flying into the atmosphere from space, and far slower than a rock would have to be going for it to "cut him in half." My guess: a rock that fell off the underc…
> If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?) ... The camera appears to be recording at a rate of about 10 frames per second. This is a way to reduce memory consumption in a portable device in which recording duration has a higher priority than recording frame rate. AT 10 FPS, the rock's sequential positions seem consistent with a falling rock. And, lo and behold: http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero3-silver-edition Quote:…
The 1080p60 means 1080p video at 60 frames per second. I would guess they are taking videos and not capturing stills, but who knows.
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?) ... The camera appears to be recording at a rate of about 10 frames per second. This is a way to reduce memory consumption in a portable device in which recording duration has a higher priority than recording frame rate. AT 10 FPS, the rock's sequential positions seem consistent with a falling rock. And, lo and behold: http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero3-silver-edition Quote:…
So even slower . At 20 mph, it could've simply come out of his parachute.
> So even slower. At 20 mph, it could've simply come out of his parachute.
It seems you're missing the point that the rock passed him by at a fairly high horizontal speed, while descending past him. That's not consistent with the rock coming out of his canopy.
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#78Is it me or does it look like the "meteorite" is moving quite slow. Shouldn't it be moving so fast that you'd need a high speed camera to see it in that detail? Also...his parachute is always above him, maybe it fell out of that.
Yeah, Occam's razor tells me that it's much more likely that a stone got stuck somewhere in their skydiving apparatus than having a meteorite fly right past you while you're skydiving. Maybe I'm underestimating the quantity of meteorites falling on the earth but since the newspapers aren't exactly filled with news of people getting killed by falling rocks I'm not yet ready to believe that was a meteorite.
Even low probability events happen. It just means we can be less certain about when they will/might happen.
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#79A related question: what's the probability of an aircraft being struck by a meteor. Seems this question was asked in the wake of the Air France flight 447 disappearance (since resolved as pitot tube freezing combined with pilot error and control feedback failures of the Airbus design). But still, the odds of a strike on _an_ aircraft over the next 20 years are about 4%: http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2009/06/how…
That would be under an assumption that the distribution of planes around the globe is even. Given most jetliners are flying in corridors, I would say the actual probability is much much lower. The same can be probably said about meteorites - I guess their geographic distribution is uneven as well.
If the distribution of meteors is perfectly even and all of the planes are parked next to each other in the desert, then the probability should be the same 4% expectation within the next 20 years of one of those parked aircraft being hit.
While staying within corridors would not matter, the distribution by latitude probably does, and my guess is that they align enough to actually increase the odds.
Re: Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite
#80I did some quick googling and found this interesting research from Oberlin, with a history of meteorite injuries and deaths: 1420 BC Israel - Fatal meteorite impact. 588 AD China - 10 deaths; siege towers destroyed. 1321-68 China - People & animals killed; homes ruined. 1369 Ho-t'ao China - Soldier injured; fire. 02/03/1490 Shansi, China - 10,000 deaths. 09/14/1511 Cremona, Italy - Monk, birds, & sheep killed. 1633-6…
Hey, I took that class in 2004!
I grew up in Oberlin and was friends with Bruce's kids, so this is cool to see in this context.