I think the most intriguing aspect of this report is the dog somehow sensed this meteorite was on its way.
"she awoke to the sound of her dog barking, giving her a moment's notice before a rock from outer space hurtled into her bedroom."
"she awoke to the sound of her dog barking, giving her a moment's notice before a rock from outer space hurtled into her bedroom."
Dogs don't really like 'booms'.
I'm gonna guess it's pretty low-density, and either entered the atmosphere at a very shallow angle, or is a chunk that fell off a larger piece somewhere close to the ground, and most of the energy was absorbed by the roof.
I think @krona's got the right answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_depth
In this case, the ratio of densities is maybe 2000, so without gravity the meteor would expend all its initial kinetic energy after traveling 2000 times its diameter through the atmosphere. That's less than 1 kilometer. Hence, it will reach terminal velocity long before hitting the surface. (See also the Meteorite part in the wiki article).
It could be conceivably coming at a speed high enough to still be supersonic when it hit the ground. However, were that the case, I doubt there would be still much of a house remaining. Or maybe a block for that matter, depending on how fast it was going.
More likely, it just slowed down due to friction. This is even more likely for a small rock.
> anything with thrust (like a supersonic plane or a bullet).
Plane has thrust, but a bullet doesn't ;)
https://www.britannica.com/science/terminal-velocity
IIUC, the meteorite was forced or “released” into its “high magnitude inertial vector” initially, and would continue to decelerate as it approached to the surface… whether it did much of that on the way down is a different story!
Considering that the earths atmosphere isn’t much more than 100km thick, and a meteor could in theory come in head-on with an initial velocity of 70km per second, there isn’t going to much time for it to slow down.
They can smell cancer, covid19 and contraband. Just simply amazing animals.
I figure dogs were pretty impressed with our take-downs and were glad to share the spoils, and vice versa. Throw in a warm fire and you got yourself a friend.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves_as_pets_and_working_ani...
in the sense of domesticating meaning training, I wouldn't call what you can do with a wolf "perfect". Don't leave the baby alone with them.
Tail-wagging in juvenile wolves and foxes was selected for in adult dogs. Their acutely sensitive hearing and olfactory sense complements our eyes etc.
Except that half of what we eat and drink is toxic to dogs. Our job is to block the dogs natural tendency to kill themselves. A true symbiotic relationship.
Humans are complex critters.
airport staff usually hate it, but you can always play dumb and be like "doggie was hungry"
I don't think they are cleaning, but eating that food.
> the alert you to danger
They alert when they are scared and looking for your help.
> they will fight off bears or other attackers
Not really. Some trained breeds are powerful enough. But smaller and non-trained dogs will run for their lives.
> They can smell cancer, covid19 and contraband.
No. They can be trained to smell them, though. They just happen to have a strong sense of smell like many other animals.
Still helpful
> They alert when they are scared and looking for your help.
Never owned a guard dog, I see. My dog has almost zero reason to be scared of anything, she's massive and strong. She lets me know when anything suspicious happens nearby
> Not really. Some trained breeds are powerful enough. But smaller and non-trained dogs will run for their lives.
Well, obviously. My Pyr can take a small bear, or at least her dad did with no problem.
> No. They can be trained to smell them, though.
They can already smell them, they can be trained to alert us to those smells.
Do you just not like dogs?
No, I have a dog and had dogs since ~10. I just don't have that emotional attachment that makes me see them as these amazing fairy-tale creatures. They are just animals with a human bond.
Also a huge dog doesn't make me feel any safe. Unless you are living in a jungle or war is breaking out in your neighborhood, you don't need a massive dog that can take a bear. Some dog breads are too powerful and can hurt real humans. These are still animals after all and can be unpredictable and harm others[1].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t...
The bond can get very strong, and pairing that effect with a dog's unique ability to read human intent and emotion can lead to a very strong relationship.
You're generalizing very strongly here. Many large dog breeds are LGDs, which are generally non-aggressive, to say the least. The most common dog injuries are from Pitbulls and Rottweilers, which have unique temperaments and aren't particularly large.
I live in a poor suburban area. My large dog is an active deterrent to would-be criminals, and she's very gentle and lazy. Based on your verbiage, I'd assume you'd prefer I have a special license to own her?
However my dog is definitely not alerting solely out of fear. He can be aggressive towards strangers in certain situations, and I'm totally confident he would confront an intruder. Though alerting is already enough to warn them and warn us too, even if he didn't.
Tons of reports of dogs waking their humans prior to impending but hard to detect dangers such as earthquakes…
[UPDATE] Reading some of the other comments it occurred to me that this particular meteorite was probably traveling at terminal velocity, and was thus sub-sonic. So it's possible a dog could hear its approach.
You could get around this by, say, making the air itself move directly towards the person nearly as quickly as the meteor, but that is probably safe to exclude as a possibility.