More Sloppy Reporting

Sometimes, I think they do this shit on purpose to drive me insane! Actually, that's no longer a drive, it's more like a short putt!

[insert soft, polite, golf tournament applause here]

Found this news story on KMBC.com today. No byline, so not sure who to blame for this abortion.

Scientist Confirms Meteorite Landed In Kan.

10-Year-Old Found Black Rock On Saturday

It's a short article and I don't want to abuse the "Fair Use" doctrine, so I'll cut to the money shot.

"Don Stimpson of Haviland, a biophysicist who owns the Kansas Meteorite Museum and Nature Center near Greensburg, said he is convinced the rock is a meteorite.

Stimpson saw the rock during a visit to Liberal Tuesday. He said it likely came from the atmosphere around the sun and fell as far as 100 million miles."

"...the atmosphere around the sun..." Seriously?

So, you're saying that meteoroid which entered the atmosphere and became the meteorite which Opie found originated in the Corona of the sun?



Because I was not aware that the corona of the sun produced bolides and hurled them at the Earth in the solar wind.

I'll have to fire off an email to Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy and let him know to add "mean Sun throwing rocks at Earth" to the next revision of "Death From The Skies".

We've all heard the story about how dropping a penny off the Empire State Building could kill somebody.

Imagine how potentially deadly this hunk o' sun-stone was after it "...fell as far as 100 million miles." I assume this "biophysicist" was alluding to the fact that the sun that spat this rock at us is 93 million miles away (rounding up FAIL).

Just for the record, shit in space doesn't just "fall" to Earth! There are some pretty complicated orbital mechanics that goven how bodies with mass interact with each other.

Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket!

Just for the record, a few facts.

Most of the really bright meteors you see are the bright streaks left by meteoroids about the size of a grain of sand.

The source of most meteoroids is comet residue orbiting the sun at a perpendicular angle to the orbit of the Earth. It's not so much that the meteoroids hit us, it's more like we plow into them them.

Oh, and one last fact, THEY AREN'T GENERATED IN THE SOLAR CORONA!!!

Fuck!