Extra-galactic Meteror?

[neutrino]

Somehow, I find news items such as this one much more interesting to read than those about maps of dark-matter halos and things of that nature. (Not that I'm uninterested in the latter.)

On July 28, 2006, Victor Afanasiev from the Russian Academy of Sciences was making observations using a 6 meter telescope equipped with a multi-slit spectrometer. By chance, he observed the spectrum of a faint meteor as it burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and in looking at the data, found several anomalies.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/25/researchers-observe-extra-galactic-meteor/

[malawi_glenn]

Is it something you want to discuss / ask ?

[neutrino]

Just posting a news item (I thought this was a bit serious for GD. :biggrin:), although a discussion would be good. It's not confirmed to be an extra-galactic meteor, and hence the '?'.

[staf9]

Might have just been moving 80kps with respect to the center of the galaxy.

I don't see why it isn't possible for an extragalactic meteor to hit us, with tons of debris floating around up there. Pretty cool stuff imo.

[sysreset]

I am skeptical. The article largely bases the extra-galactic conclusion on the high velocity, but then they go on to analyze 246 meteors in 36 hours and claim 12 may have been extra-galactic based on velocity alone. That seems very improbable.

Then they bolster the extra-galactic conclusion on the spectra showing the composition of iron, magnesium, and oxygen; but that is what is found in meteorites routinely.