Skydiving Meteorite- It was just a rock

[n2doc]

By Phil Plait
For those of you taking notes at home, over the past few days I wrote a couple of pieces about a viral video that purported to show a meteoroid (the solid part of space debris that gets hot and creates a meteor when it rams through our atmosphere) zipping past a skydiver. At first I was open to the idea, if skeptical, but upon further reading and examination I became more convinced it was just a rock that fell out of the skydiver’s parachute.

Unfortunately, that turns out to be the case. It really was just a rock.

Steinar Midtskogen, one of the people involved with making the video, has written a post with the story. Clearly they were hoping it was actually a meteorite, but the evidence mounted up to the more mundane, terrestrial explanation.

I actually became convinced last night, when BA Tweep Helge Bjørkhaug sent me a link to a slowed down version of the video. Immediately before the rock flies past, I saw a second piece of debris just to the right of the skydiver’s parachute strap. It was in several frames, and clearly real. Here’s a screen grab:


more

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/08/skydiving_meteorite_it_was_a_rock.html

[onehandle]

1. I thought it was a rock from the start.

Wrong shape, color, speed and trajectory.

[seveneyes]

2. Too much time elapsed from chute opening to be just a rock

Besides, chute packing is a bit more precise than allowing large rocks to be hidden in the layers. There was no rock in that chute.

[jakeXT]

3. Looking at the video in slow motion, it looks like a distant second one

Reminds me of strewnfields mentioned by Meteorite Men

Mid-air fragmentation: when a large meteoroid enters the atmosphere it often fragments into many pieces before touching the ground due to thermal shock. This mid-air explosion causes the dispersion of the material over a large oval-shaped area. The orientation of this oval is determined by the flight path of the meteoroid. When multiple-explosions occur, the material can be found in several overlapping ovals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strewn_field

[jakeXT]

4. Others convinced him that this is another skydiver

UPDATE (Apr. 8 at 20:00 UTC): Midtskorgen emailed me again, and said the second object I point out here is actually the second skydiver, Jon Vegar. That sounds reasonable, to be honest; he appears later in the video near that spot, and the second object doesn't appear to be falling as fast as you'd expect a rock to fall. I'm OK with that, and this doesn't change the overall conclusion that the original object is a rock.

How could he not see that it was something distant ?