http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3795900a10,00.html
  
  
      Police have 'meteorite' fragment
  
      www.stuff.co.nz (New Zealand)
  
      13 September 2006
  
  
      A piece of 'space debris' found at a Dunsandel property last night will
  
      be handed over to staff from the National Radiation Laboratory this
  
      morning, Christchurch police said today.
  
  
      Police said a police officer from Lincoln collected the item from a
  
      Canterbury farm last night and brought it into the police station around
  
      9.30pm last night.
  
  
  "It is very light...almost weightless and (the farmers) have never seen 
      anything like it before," said police southern communications centre 
      supervisor Paul Visser.
  
  
      Visser said the object was about 10cm long, 5cm wide and deep, and too
  
      light to be rock, with an "unknown texture". 
  
      The exact location of the find has not been revealed.
  
  
      Flashing across the sky at speeds of 40,000kmh, a meteor in "terminal 
      fireball" sent a sonic shockwave across the South Island on Tuesday 
      afternoon, startling and frightening thousands of residents. The sonic
  
      boom from the meteor speeding through the Earth's atmosphere at 2.55pm
  
      yesterday was heard by people from Hinds, south of Ashburton, to Blenheim.
  
  
      The boom caused buildings to shake and windows to break, and prompted a
  
      flood of calls to emergency services.
  
  
      Scientists have said it is unlikely anything will be found of the
  
      meteor, which was probably no bigger than a basketball.
  
  
      Mount John Observatory resident superintendent Alan Gilmore said
  
      evidence pointed to the meteor exploding in a "terminal fireball" as it 
      got closer to land.
  
  
  "We did hear reports of a woman saying she saw a bright white light, 
      followed by colours, but that would have been it going 'poof' into a
  
      luminous cloud," he said. 
  
      The noise indicated it was travelling faster than sound, possibly over
  
      40,000kmh, slowing when it hit the Earth's thicker air.
  
  
      Gilmore said it was unusual to see a meteor during the day, with the
  
      last reported daytime sighting in the North Island six years ago.
  
  
      University of Canterbury astronomist Professor John Hearnshaw said it
  
      was "moderately rare" for a meteor to burn up in the atmosphere and be 
      found on the ground.
  
  
      The meteor most likely exploded as it hit denser air in the upper
  
      troposphere - the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere - or in the
  
      stratosphere above that at an altitude of between 12km and 50km above
  
      sea level, he said.
  
  
      People from across the South Island were stunned by the meteor's flaming
  
      progress and sonic boom.
  
  
      Cavan O'Connell, of Hoon Hay, Christchurch, who caught the event on
  
      camera, said he thought the enormous bang was a plane exploding.
  
  
  "Here's this huge ball of smoke, quite a few thousand feet up. It was 
      above the cloud layer, so straight away I thought of September 11," he 
      said.
  
  
  "It seemed to be on the main Dunedin-Auckland air route... and 
      (September 11) has been on everyone's minds for the last few weeks."
  
  
      The ball of smoke was "perfectly round" and appeared to be pulsating, he 
      said.
  
  
      Pilot Neville van Eerten was on a Cessna training flight near Rangiora
  
      when he saw a flash in the sky.
  
  
  "It was right in front of our window," he said. "It broke into two huge 
      pieces and then two smaller pieces. It was a huge fireball."
  
  
      The object was "several thousand feet" above the plane, he said. 
  
      Jill Gillespie, of Geraldine, was driving to Christchurch yesterday when
  
      a falling object caught her attention.
  
  
  "Out in front of my windscreen something was falling out of the sky and 
      it was flaming," she said. 
  
  "I couldn't believe it. I was looking around for the rest of the plane."
  
  
      Gillespie watched the object fall for four or five seconds.
  
  
  "It seemed to take ages to land. It reminded me of a falling star, but 
      much much closer. It looked about the size of a fencepost from where I
  
      was and it was just flaming," she said. 
  
      Kaiapoi resident Tony Burgess was up a ladder painting his house when he
  
      saw a ball of fire moving across the sky.
  
  
      As the flaming ball travelled across the sky it broke into about four
  
      pieces and fell to the ground.
  
  
      There was a lot of smoke in the air after the object broke up, he said.
  
  
      Soon after, the ball disappeared from view and a massive noise shook his
  
      house.
  
  
  "I really felt it. It was like a big boom that kept going for about 15 
      seconds. I felt this wave," he said. 
  
      Police southern communications centre shift supervisor Paul Visser said
  
      police fielded more than 100 calls within minutes of the "bang". 
  
  "People were very good and quite keen to let us know where it was coming 
      from," he said. 
  
      Fire communications fielded about 20 calls after the "explosion". 
  
      No major damage was reported to emergency services.
  
  
      GNS Science seismologist Kevin Fenaughty said its instruments had
  
      detected surface and soundwaves at two recording sites, one at the base
  
      of the Port Hills in Cashmere and the other at McQueens Valley on Banks
  
      Peninsula.
  
  
      Senior Constable Chris Hughey, of Hanmer Springs, likened the meteor to
  
      Haley's Comet, which he saw when it last passed near Earth in 1986.
  
  
  "All it looked like was a vapour trail from a plane coming in at huge 
      altitude."