A three - alarm forest fire in the White Mountains near Woodstock , New Hampshire was linked to reports of a meteorite strike , theBoston Globereported on Wednesday .
On Tuesday night , one witness said that the day before “ at 7:35 p.m. , he was take by and saw a meteor streak through the sky and crash , ” Woodstock blast section Chief John MacKay told the report . The glare in the area later spread to between 22 to 25 surrounding acres of timberland and more than 50 people , as well as two helicopters , were deployed to fight it .
“ It ’s not a large fire , but it ’s a difficult fire because of the steepness of it , and the raising , ” MacKay added . As to whether the fire was started by a space rock , the blast chief recite the Globe , “ We ca n’t say yes or no . ”
ignore whether the story of the meteorite was accurate , look : It ’s reasonable to distrust some form of connection . After all , rocks burn up in the air all the time — honestly , at a frequency thatmight make you neural — and certainly seem really hot while doing so . Pop - acculturation delineation of meteors also often depict them as flame mickle of semi - molten rock music .
But the science advise otherwise .
According to theAmerican Meteor Society , while 1000 of meteors each solar day are undimmed enough to be referred to as fireball , only comparatively large , slowly - moving and hardy meteors are likely to reach the ground without disintegrate during their passageway through the air . These bad single are capable of transfer their energizing energy to thermic energy , though this would lead in a very difficult to pretermit explosion of considerable size .
While there ’s not much datum on the temperature of smaller meteorite that hit the flat coat , the gild wrote , they are probably not glowing red - hot with energy .
When meteorites cauterize up in the aura , they undergo ablation — a process in which the outermost layers of the falling objective encroachment air molecules at high speed and are vaporized . The atmospheric state really suck up away much of the heat , per the MA :
The ablation process , which occurs over the majority of the meteorite ’s route , is a very efficient passion removal method , and was in effect copied for use during the former manned place escape for re - entry into the atmosphere . During the final free - fall fate of their flight , meteorites undergo very little frictional heating plant , and probably reach the land at only more or less above ambient temperature .
Meteorites of less than 10 tons really lose much of their speed when penetrating the atmosphere and then just light to earth at a final speed of 200 to 400 miles per minute ( 322 - 644 kilometre per hr ) , with terminal velocity fall out “ at the point where the speedup due to gravity is exactly cancel by the slowing due to atmospheric pull . ”
As theCornell University Astronomy Departmentnotes , though , while rocky meteorites are pitiable heating conductors , anecdotal news report suggest some do slay the open at least live enough to singe grass . So it could theoretically pop a fervidness .
“ It ’s not unacceptable , but it ’s very , very unlikely and unconvincing , ” University of New Hampshire purgative professor John Gianforte tell theConcord Monitor .
In 2016 , Maryland firefightersretracted a claimthat a glare around a “ crater 12 - 15 foot ( 3.7 - 4.6 metre ) broad and 5 - 6 ft deep ” was due to a meteorite .
“ There ’s hiking trails through this area , so there is the possibility of a cigarette or a campfire , ” MacKaytold the Globe .
[ Boston Globe / Concord Monitor ]
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