'Unusual rock' to be analysed
2006-09-13 12:01
Wellington - A small piece of unusual rock found in a New Zealand paddock was sent for analysis on Wednesday as speculation mounted it was a chunk of a meteor that rattled the region with its sonic boom as it crashed to earth.
Police spokesperson Maggie Leask said the unusual rock was found on a farm near where witnesses reported something streaking through the sky on Tuesday. It was handed to National Radiation Laboratory scientists for analysis.
A farmer found the 10-centimetre-long, five-centimetre-wide rock near the town of Dunsandel, south of Christchurch, 300 kilometres south of the capital Wellington.
"It is very light ... almost weightless and (the farmer) had never seen anything like it before," said Paul Visser, a local police spokesperson.
Sightings of a bright speeding light, then a puff of smoke as the meteor apparently burst into a fireball, were reported by many residents of Christchurch and beyond.
Police and fire services received hundreds of calls from people reporting that they heard a boom that shook the ground and their houses.
The boom was detected by instruments used to measure earthquakes at two Canterbury recording sites, earthquake scientists said.
Mt John Observatory superintendent Allan Gilmore said the sonic boom indicated the meteor was travelling "very low" and was probably between the size of a baseball and a basketball.
He said it would be travelling at speeds up to 40 000 km/h as it became a "terminal fireball" - sending a sonic shock wave across New Zealand's South Island.
Sonic booms are created when an object moves through the air faster than the speed of sound, about 1 100 km/h.
Gilmore said witness reports seemed to confirm the meteor burst into a terminal fireball.
Thicker air closer to the earth could have slowed it down to about 40 000 kilometres an hour, and this rapid deceleration often causes meteors to break up.
Meteors low and bright enough to be seen during the day occur once every three to four years in New Zealand.
- AP