Meteorite-like object falls in Latvia....

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/features/science/20091026_ap_meteoritelikeobjectfallsinlatvia.html ^ | October 26th, 2009

[Political Junkie Too]

Has Obama declared an emergency yet?

-PJ

[Lockbar]

[TaraP]

I wouldn't want to touch it...

[dfwgator]

[50sDad]

Has anyone told Baron Von Doom?

[ArrogantBustard]

Those streamers of gas coming from Mars?

They're probably just meteorite impacts there ... The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one.

[dfwgator]

Those streamers of gas coming from Mars?

I thought it was coming from Uranus.

(You left that hanging curve ball right over the middle of the plate)

[Boonie]

If you see any men in black suits around, don’t look at their ink pens....

[ArrogantBustard]

Danged burritos ...

[Dewey Revoltnow]

I'm ready to join the Latvian Orthodox Church, Fada.

[stormer]

Your speed is off by a magnitude.

I haven’t entered the info, but here’s an interesting link: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/tekton/crater_p.html

[CholeraJoe]

It says Leonid meteors impact at about 75km/s. I was off by quite a bit, since I used the speed of an ICBM reentry vehicle. According to the chart, that would be an object the size of a marble. Asteroidal debris would be about cantaloupe sized.

[derekr44]

We just had the Orionids (remnants of Halley’s Comet). Could be from there.

[stormer]

At 160,000 mph it wouldn't take much mass to do a lot of damage. That seems like a max speed, I would think that smaller objects are going to experience more aerodynamic braking than larger ones and slow down quite a bit.

[Defiant]

Looks like the Barney Frank Memorial Crater.

[Species8472]

Latvian Experts Say Meteorite Crater Was Hoax

[elcid1970]

Latvian authorities had to cordon off the area to discourage souvenir hunters?

“Oh look, there’s some lovely filth over there!”

;^)

[DBrow]

Spectroscopy of the gas plumes, using the light of background stars, suggests that they are hydrogen gas. I doubt a natural process could produce that much, do you think?

[reagan_fanatic]

"Give me water. With sugar."

[Defiant]

That's because it's a hoax!

Latvian town reports UFO crash, officials call it a hoax

A small Latvian town has become famous overnight and has made the UFO proponents excited for a brief moment as an unidentified flaming object came from space and made a large crater covered with flames. Initially, according to The Sun, experts believed it to be a meteorite but after a close inspection it was concluded to be a hoax.

Geologist Dainis Ozols told the media on Monday that the crater was man-made. Another expert, Uldis Nulle of the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center, originally thought it was a meteorite. However after in-depth analysis he recanted his statement, reports The Independent Online, “This is not a real crater. It is artificial.”

Girts Stinkulis, from the Latvian State University, told Russia Today, “There are traces of spade-work on the lip of the crater, as well as cut pieces of grass. Besides, the proportions of the crater are atypical – the mound of debris is too tall, while the pit is too large.”

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Listen to Mr. Stinkulis.