



A 14 years old guy named Gerrit Blank survived a direct hit by a meteorite as it moved to Earth at more than 30,000 mph.. that sound scary, doesn’t it?

As explained by The Telegraph reports. Gerrit Blank was on his way to school when he saw a “ball of light” heading straight towards him from the sky. It was a red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.

The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million – but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.

“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,” he explained.I am really keen on science and my teachers discovered that the fragment is really magnetic,” said Gerrit.

Scientists researched on the pea-sized meteorite which crashed on Earth in Essen, Germany and admitted that it had fallen from space. Ansgar Kortem, director of Germany’s Walter Hohmann Observatory, said: “It’s a real meteorite, therefore it is very valuable to collectors and scientists.“

Most meteors vaporize in the atmosphere, creating “shooting stars,” and never reach the ground. The few that do, are typically made mostly of metals. Stony space rocks, even if as big as a car, will usually break apart or explode as they crash through the atmosphere.

Here are some more incidents that have happened in the past. Human strikes are however rare. In fact there are no known instances of humans being killed by space rocks.

According to a SPACE.com article:

On November 30, 1954, Alabama housewife Ann Hodges was taking a nap on her couch when she was awakened by a 3-pound (1.4-kilogram) meteor that crashed through the roof of her house, bounced off a piece of furniture and struck her in the hip, causing a large bruise.

On October 9, 1992, a large fireball was seen streaking over the eastern United States, finally exploding into many pieces. In Peekskill, New York, one of the pieces struck a Chevrolet automobile owned by Michelle Knapp. Knapp was not in the car at the time.

On June 21, 1994, Jose Martin of Spain was driving with his wife near Madrid when a 3-pound (1.4-kilogram) meteor crashed through his windshield, bent the steering wheel and ended up in the back seat.

In 2004, a 2,000-pound space rock bigger than a refrigerator exploded in the late-night sky over Chicago, producing a large flash and a sound resembling a detonation that woke people up. Fragments rained down on that wild Chicago night, and many were collected by residents in a northern suburb.



Source: Telegraph,space.