Fireball

Patients in the General Hospital at Kansas City, Mo., were disturbed shortly before midnight, one night last week, by a loud explosion and a sudden flash of light. Then the night resumed its quietude and its blackness. Next day, investigators found a burned patch of grass on the hospital grounds and a few small holes, less than two inches in diameter, in the earth. A fireball (meteor) had hit Kansas City.

Meteors, literally "things in the air," refer specifically to luminous bodies known as shooting stars, falling stars, fireballs, bolides. Traveling rapidly through the air, they generate intense frictional heat which burns up most of their material substance. Thus, they become "balls" of fiery gases and small particles of carbon, magnesium, sodium, etc. The explosion of a meteor is due to its rapid combustion in the dense atmosphere near the earth. It is estimated that some 20,000,000 meteors, which would be visible to the naked eye in the absence of sunlight, moonlight or clouds, enter the atmosphere every day.

Meteorites are the material residue of meteors, which reaches the earth. The largest meteorite actually seen to fall, landed its 547 pounds at Knyahinya, Hungary, in 1866. However, masses have been found weighing up to 50 tons, which have the characteristics of meteorites. A fused crust indicating intense heating in the drop through the air is noticeable on all meteorites. About one-third of the earth's elements have been found in meteorites; most of them resemble stones; a few contain a large percentage of iron ore. Perhaps the most famed meteorite of history was the black, cone-shaped stone which fell in Phrygia; was worshiped by the Greeks as Cybele, mother of gods; was taken to Rome in 204 B. C. to insure Roman prosperity.