The Sylacauga meteorite: Mrs Hodges Struck and wounded

This image shows Ms Ann Hodges in hospital and clearly shows the severe bruising caused by the meteorite.

NB: An impact crater is called an "astrobleme."

Credit: Jay Leviton, Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images

60 years ago today, at 2:46 p.m. local time, a meteor burned over Sylacauga, Alabama.

Normally, this wouldn't be news, except that this fragment of interplanetary debris was pretty big, probably massing dozens of kilograms.

It broke up high over the ground, creating a fireball bright enough to be witnessed across three states.

Most of it became vapour and very small chunks, but one piece, with a mass of 3.9 kilos (8.5 pounds), survived its atmospheric entry.

Falling at terminal velocity, a couple of hundred kilometers per hour, it made it all the way to the ground.

Kinda, there were two things in its way: A house, and Ms Ann Hodges.

The rock (Sylacauga meteorite) slammed into the house, punching a hole in the roof.

Still moving rapidly, it hit a radio (at the time, a pretty large piece of furniture), careered off, and smacked into the hand and hip of Ms. Ann Hodges, who was napping on the couch nearby.

It left a fierce bruise on her side that. This event is the most well-documented case of a human hit by a meteorite in history.

Some believe the real story happened after Hodges was hit. There are some fairly complete articles about the aftermath at the Encyclopedia of Alabama and the Decatur Daily.

Basically, there was a big tussle over who owned the meteorite. Hodges and her husband were renting the house from one Birdie (or Bertie) Guy.

This picture shows the hole in the ceiling and the meteorite fragment held in the policeman's hand.

Mrs Hodges is standing next to the policeman.

Credit: Jay Leviton, Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images

Legally, Guy owned the meteorite, since it landed on her property, but public opinion, unsurprisingly, sided with Hodges to keep it.

The legal wrestling went on for some time until Guy gave up the lawsuit, but by that time interest had waned, and no one wanted to buy the rock.

Hodges initially used it as a doorstop but eventually she donated it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History, where it’s still on display in the Smith Hall, alongside the State Fossil of Alabama: Basilosaurus cetoides.

Russian Satellite Hit by Debris from Chinese Anti-Satellite Test

On Jan. 22, 2013, debris from a Chinese anti-satellite program test hit a Russian satellite. CREDIT: Courtesy of Analytical Graphics, Inc.

A small Russian spacecraft in orbit appears to have been struck by Chinese space junk from a 2007 anti-satellite test, likely damaging the Russian craft, possibly severely.

The space collision appears to have occurred on Jan. 22, when a chunk of China's Fengyun 1C satellite, which was intentionally destroyed by that country in a 2007 anti-satellite demonstration, struck the Russian spacecraft, according to an analysis by the Center for Space Standards & Innovation (CSSI) in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

CSSI technical program manager T.S. Kelso reported that the collision involved the Chinese space junk and Russia's small Ball Lens In The Space (BLITS) retroreflector satellite, a 17-pound (7.5 kilograms).

The Fengyun 1C satellite debris was created during China's anti-satellite test on Jan. 11, 2007, and has posed a threat to satellites and crewed spacecraft ever since.

Infographics version

Evidence of the space junk collision was first reported on Feb. 4 by Russian scientists Vasiliy Yurasov and Andrey Nazarenko, both with the Institute for Precision Instrument Engineering (IPIE) in Moscow.

They reported a "significant change" in the orbit of the BLITS satellite to the CSSI.

It is not immediately clear whether the satellite is merely wounded or completely incapacitated.

The space collision is the second substantial in-space accident between an active spacecraft and a defunct satellite or piece of space debris.

In February 2009, a U.S. communications satellite was destroyed when it was hit by a defunct Russian military satellite, creating a vast debris cloud in orbit.
The BLITS satellite is a nanosatellite consisting of two outer hemispheres made of a low-refraction-index glass, and an inner ball lens made of a high-refraction-index glass. It was launched in 2009 as a secondary payload on a Russian rocket and tracked by the International Laser Ranging Service for precision satellite laser-ranging experiments.

In addition to noticing the satellite's change in orbit, Yurasov and Nazarenko also detected changes in the spacecraft's spin velocity and attitude.

Satellite laser ranging use short-pulse lasers and state-of-the-art optical receivers and timing electronics to measure the two-way time of flight (and hence distance) from ground stations to retroreflector arrays on Earth orbiting satellites.