The other day I put a link in the shoutbox about a skydiver that just missed being hit by a meteor. Phil Plait has got a whole thing on it. http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/04/07/skydiving_meteorite_was_it_an_object_from_space_or_just_a_rock.html Having done a few jumps myself I know that it is quite easy to pack a small stone or something in with your shute. What bothers me here is that it doesn’t come barreling past at the moment of deployment, but a couple of seconds after. If it got caught up for that long it would be going much slower. Also, most people nowadays pack their shutes standing bent over with the canopy hanging down, as opposed to, in my day, working on the ground. I don’t know what to make of this.
A second sky diver? Is a real meteorite that impossible?
Shuoldn’t it be glowing hot from friction or sumthing though?
It would have cooled down by the time it reached that hight and a group of divers separates from each other before opening. (You fall at the same speed but one opening a second before the other and you have a stationary object in the way while you are still going at 200 km/h) Occam’s razor tells us it must be something that was packed into the shute but like I said, the timing does not look right.
It’s a meteor, rite? (sorry)
A second piece of something was now found in the footage. That rules space debris out. If something broke apart on entering the atmosphere they would be quite far apart, by the time they reach this hight. I guess I was wrong about the timing. 