A California man says a meteor may have set his home ablaze. Scientists are skeptical

Hearth officers responded to a blaze earlier this month close to California’s Lake Englebright.

CAL FIRE Nevada Yuba Placer unit

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CAL FIRE Nevada Yuba Placer unit

Hearth officers responded to a blaze earlier this month close to California’s Lake Englebright.

CAL FIRE Nevada Yuba Placer unit

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A “flaming basketball” meteor within the sky lately made headlines after claims that it struck a house in northern California and set it on hearth.

The home, which sits on a cattle ranch in Nevada County, about 60 miles from Sacramento, was destroyed. Its proprietor, Dustin Procita, was left rattled by the seemingly freakish accident.

Native eyewitnesses took to the web, spreading pictures and video of a brilliant yellowish gentle within the sky, careening towards earth. Neighbors instructed arriving firefighters that that they had heard a thunderous crash at about the identical time because the blaze is believed to have begun.

“They stated it is a 1 in 4 trillion likelihood,” Procita exclaimed to native information reporters, hours after the 800-square-foot house was diminished to ashes.

Seems Procita could have been unfortunate, however not that unfortunate.

The chilly exhausting fact about falling meteorites

Scientists who monitor meteorites are skeptical that this tragedy was brought on by a falling rock from outer area.

The truth is, Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., instructed NPR that by the point a meteorite would have hit Earth, there was in all probability not a lot left of the falling rock – seemingly a rogue piece of the Southern Taurid meteor bathe that’s well-known for producing the brightest fireballs in the course of the month of October.

Part of Jenniskens’ job is to search out meteorites. To do this, he typically makes use of Doppler climate radar to trace their descent. Meteorites can fall into the earth’s ambiance anyplace from 20 to 33 kilometers per second. They journey so shortly that the warmth and friction trigger the fragments to interrupt aside or soften away, leaving little or no to review, he defined.

Typically bigger bits really make it via, hitting land or water.

“However on this case, it in all probability didn’t,” he stated, including that he was assured within the conclusion based mostly on information gathered by Doppler climate radar sweeps of the realm.

The climate radar typically picks up the sound of falling rock, mistaking it for hail, in response to Jenniskens. “And on this case, that was not seen. So we do not assume that sufficient materials survived for the radar to get a sign.”

He additionally famous that based mostly on his staff’s calculations, the fireball that eyewitnesses noticed up within the sky would have landed about 37 kilometers – almost 23 miles – away from Procita’s house.

“To most individuals wanting up they appear like they’re actually shut. However they are not,” Jenniskens stated.

On this case, 120 eyewitnesses from as far north as Grants Go, Ore., to as far south as Greenfield, Calif., a stretch of greater than 500 miles, reported seeing the streaking meteor.

Lastly, Jenniskens added, falling area particles doesn’t begin fires on the bottom. Sure, they’re referred to as fireballs as a result of they illuminate the sky, however they’re by no means really emitting flames, he stated.

“I do not assume it might have set [the house] on hearth as a result of the rock would simply not be sizzling sufficient. It will have had time to chill down on its descent,” Jenniskens stated.

Once they lastly hit the bottom, he stated, “they land chilly.”

Well-known outer area rocks

One of many extra well-known of those extraterrestrial rock incidents occurred in 2010, when a half-pound meteorite struck a health care provider’s workplace in Virgina at as much as 200 miles per hour.

“It went via the roof. It [went] via one wall partition after which handed via a particle board ceiling into the ground of an examination room,” Linda Welzenbach, supervisor of the meteorite assortment on the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of Pure Historical past, instructed Area.com on the time.

Extra lately, a canine home that was hit by a meteorite in 2019 fetched greater than $44,000 at a Christie’s public sale in New York. On the similar sale, the precise rock that pierced a gap within the metallic kennel offered for greater than $21,000.

Coincidence doesn’t equate to causation

Hearth Capt. Clayton Thomas, who’s main the investigation into the hearth at Procita’s house in Nevada County, stated that by the point the primary hearth staff arrived on the home, “it was totally engulfed in hearth.”

At the same time as firefighters had been battling the blaze, different folks within the space instructed the incident commander that that they had seen “some kind of flaming object fall to the bottom,” Thomas instructed NPR.

He famous that Nov. 4 – the evening of the hearth – was the height of the Southern Taurid meteor bathe that was placing on a spectacular present over northern California. He stated in almost the entire studies obtained by the hearth division, “folks felt it had fallen proper on this neighborhood.”

That included Procita. “The resident and one in every of his neighbors close by heard a loud crash, and when he walked out to the entrance of the constructing, the porch was on hearth.”

Procita managed to save lots of one pet canine from the flames and tried to get again inside for a second, however could not save him. The canine died within the hearth, in response to Thomas.

Whereas the investigation continues, he stated, he isn’t dismissing the outer-space-rock concept however he is taking a look at extra typical causes for residential fires, together with electrical points, a potential fuel leak or smoking materials.

A real believer within the scientific technique, Thomas stated, “There’s a coincidence that there was a loud noise audible to a number of folks within the neighborhood on the time of the hearth. And there was a meteor bathe and there have been individuals who witnessed one thing brilliant falling from the sky proper about the identical time.”

“However coincidence doesn’t equate to causation.”