14 DAY TRIAL // German teenager Gerrit Blank, 14, may consider himself lucky, after being hit in the arm by a falling meteorite. Traveling at more than 30,000 miles per hour, the incandescent, red-hot piece of rock, no larger than the size of a pea, soared extremely close to the boy, rubbing against his hand, and then burying itself in the road. The ensuing shock wave threw the teen in the air, but his injuries were minor.
Authorities were quick to point out that the rock did not hit the boy directly, as, if that had happened, the meteorite would have undoubtedly passed right through him. This is evidenced by the strength of the impact, which the victim described as being many times louder than the loudest thunderstorm ever heard. The impact caused a crater about a foot wide in the ground, next to the teen. A few centimeters in the wrong direction, and he could have kissed his entire arm, or his life, good bye.
“At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road,” Gerrit shared.
“It's a real meteorite, therefore it is very valuable to collectors and scientists. Most don't actually make it to ground level because they evaporate in the atmosphere. Of those that do get through, about six out of every seven of them land in water,” the Director of the Walter Hohmann Observatory in Germany, Ansgar Kortem, explained. The meteorite fell in Essen, and scientific studies have since confirmed that the rock is, indeed, magnetic, and that it fell from outer space.
However, there are some doubts over the truth behind the incident. There are those who say that, even if the fragment was only the size of a pea, its speed would have made it a lot more dangerous than stated. For example, the International Space Station had to steer out of its orbit on account of fragments of space debris, sometimes smaller than the one that fell in Germany.