Abstract
J. HUGH PRUETT has written an account of a detonating meteor (Ast. Soc. Pacific, Leaf. No. 165, Nov. 1942) under the title, “The Portland Meteor and Resulting Meteorite”. The meteor was seen soon after 8 a.m. on July 2, 1939, and was not only a conspicuous fireball, but was also responsible for a panic among many people in Portland, Oregon, owing to the jarring of the houses while it passed over the town. From data supplied by a number of observers, it was found that the fireball became visible near the northern Oregon coast-line, and passing over northern Portland, disappeared beyond Bonneville at a height of 10 miles. It was moving in a direction opposite to that of the earth in its orbit and for this reason had a fairly high velocity-probably 40 miles a second. Next day a portion of the fireball was picked up on a farm near Washougal, fifteen miles east of Portland, and it was found that it belonged to the type of stony meteorites known as Howardites. Although search parties were organized, no other pieces were found ; but it is fairly certain that the Washougal portion, weighing 225 gm., is not the only fragment which reached the earth. Howardites are described as friable and easily destroyed because the material composing them is cemented together rather loosely.
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Meteors Seen in the United States. Nature 151, 192 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151192b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151192b0