Disappointment in Alsace. The analysis of a small rock found during an intervention on a vehicle with a 50 centimeter diameter hole on the roof in Strasbourg last week helped to remove doubts about its origin: it is not of a meteorite fall, we learned on Wednesday.
“The visual observations, as well as the analyses, make it possible to affirm that the rock analyzed is not a fragment of meteorite,” indicated in a press release the School and Observatory of Earth Sciences (EOST), which carried out these studies.
On November 20, the firefighters were called to intervene on a “smoke release from a car” parked in a peripheral district of the Alsatian city.
No meteorite entry into the atmosphere
“Following the recognition of the first team, we suspect the fall of a stellar body,” wrote the Sdis du Bas-Rhin in an intervention report. But once transmitted to the laboratory, the researchers noted from the first observation using a binocular magnifying glass that “the rock, with an average size of 1.5 centimeters, does not present any of the characteristics of meteorites”, indicates the EOST.
Other studies will show that the rock analyzed is a sandstone, either a terrestrial rock “composed of multiple crystals of various natures (quartz, orthoclase, albite, pyrite), all partially covered with crystallized filaments of hydrocarbons (bitumen or diesel),” the researchers indicated in their press release.
EOST also analyzed seismological data from permanent stations in the region. “No clear signal that could be linked to meteorite entry into the atmosphere” was observed. The probability of a meteorite hitting a car is “very low”, the researchers point out in their press release. ” Alone a proven case has occurred since the invention of the automobile in 1992 in Peeksill, United States.