Friday, June 12, 2009

Meteorite Boy

A 14-year-old German boy had an extremely rare event happen to him. Gerrit Blank was struck by a meteorite! The space rock was travelling at 30,000 miles per hour, and hit his hand before creating a crater in the ground a foot across.

The Telegraph reports that the boy said:

"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 young man went on . . .

"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."

Obviously Gerrit's scar will give him a lifelong reminder of a close encounter with the extraterrestrial rock.