Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. โค๏ธ

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

๐Ÿ”  ๐Ÿ’€  ๐Ÿ“ธ  ๐Ÿ˜ญ  ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ  ๐Ÿค   ๐ŸŽฌ  ๐Ÿฅ”

Skydiver almost hit by meteorite

No idea if this is an April Fools thing or not, but skydiver Anders Helstrup claims that a rock whooshed past him during a wingsuit flight in 2012. And he caught the incident on video:

The relevent bit starts at about 25 seconds in. Here’s a news story and a longer version of the video report with English subtitles:

Although Helstrup is still not completely convinced that it was indeed a meteorite that flew past him, the experts are in no doubt.

“It can’t be anything else. The shape is typical of meteorites โ€” a fresh fracture surface on one side, while the other side is rounded,” said geologist Hans Amundsen.

He explained that the meteorite had been part of a larger stone that had exploded perhaps 20 kilometres above Helstrup.

Amundsen thinks he can make out coloured patches in the stone, and believes that in that case it may be a breccia โ€” a common type of meteorite rock.

According to the article, the search is on to find the meterorite on the ground. I poked around a bit for information on a fireball sighting over Norway on the date in question (June 17, 2012) but didn’t find anything. Smells like a hoax to me, but if it’s real, it’s the first time a post-fireball meteor has been observed and filmed while still falling.

Update: Even Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy allows this may be real.