*A schoolboy has survived being hit by a meteorite that came crashing down to earth at 48,000km/h.
Gerrit Blank, 14, was walking to school in Essen in western Germany when he saw a "ball of light" in the sky hurtling towards him, Britain's The Telegraph newspaper reports.
The meteorite, a red-hot rock the size of a pea, slammed into Gerrit's hand before crashing into the road to create a 30cm-wide crater.
"At first I just saw a large ball of light and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand," the newspaper quoted Gerrit as saying.
"Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."
The lucky teenager survived the strike but was left with a nasty 8cm scar on his hand.
Scientists are now examining the meteorite and chemical tests have already proven the rock fell from space.
Germany's Walter Hohmann Observatory director Ansgar Kortem told The Telegraph the meteorite would be very valuable to scientists and collectors.
"Most don't actually make it to ground level because they evaporate in the atmosphere," he said.
"Of those that do get through, about six out of every seven of them land in water."
The chances of a person being hit by a meteorite are thought to be about one in a million.
The only other known example of a human surviving a meteor strike happened in the US state of Alabama in 1954.
Then a grapefruit-sized space rock hit a sleeping woman after it crashed through a house roof and bounced off some furniture.
*NB: Wow! ...and i still complain about the time in high school when a seagull pooped on me and i stunk of fish all day!
X;-)
9 comments:
I saw a girl who got pooped on by a pelican one day...god...it was sooooooooooooooo funny....xxxxxx
Yes, I too admit I was pooped on by a blue Jay. This was a while back but I remember it well. Good thing the boy didn't get hit on the head, it may have turned out differently. Have a great day.
hee hee hee seagull poop...yep been there too, in fact i have been pooped on by all sorts of things...looking after wildlife, you know how it is LOL
lucky boy isnt he!!
xxsm
What the? Indeed! Great story, thanks Vicki.xx♥
I read that yesterday, it's freaky! One in a million - I'd SO buy a lottery ticket!
On the comment thread... my mum once had a bird poop directly on the top of the meat pie she was about to eat..... Yuck... that's gotta be at LEAST one in HALF a million, right? *giggle*
xx
LOL!! You reminded me of the time I was pooped on by a bird in jr. high school. Wish I knew it was this common back then. Wow, what a lucky young man there... now he'll have a whopper of a story to tell his grandkids one day.
Can you believe that young mans luck! First of all - 1 in a million! YIKES! I thought about how lucky he was and then, I started thinking of how much different it could have been! He is a lucky boy!
Yup - got pooped on by a bird as well! I was not impressed, even though my friends, who were killing themselves laughing, kept telling me that it was supposed to mean good luck! Right - the good luck was that it didn't land on them!
xoxoxo
Hee! hEE! Seems the old bird poop experience is a common one! X;-)
Bird poop? Yeah, more than once for me. And the meteorite that hit the boy -- I live about 30 miles from the place in Alabama where the woman was hit. Good day!
Hugs,
Nancy (nanakin1)
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