Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Wednesday 26 November 1930, page 9


BALL OF FIRE

Flaming Object Falls to Earth METEOR OR METEORITE?

A huge ball of fire with a flaming tail shot across the eastern sky just before 11 o'clock last night. Dozens of persons telephoned to "The

Advertiser" and described its sudden appearance, its rush through space, and its spectacular dispersal after it had exploded. The descriptions supplied were as varied as they were numerous, and unless the mass of the meteorite is found there will always be doubt where it fell. The version of one eye-witness of the pheno-menon was that it fell in the Torrens quite near the city; another, that it came to rest at Waterfall Gully. Still another opinion was that it would be found in the morning somewhere near Morphettville racecourse. Some who saw the heavenly body in its flight to earth said it was brilliantred, then pale blue, fading to sickly yellow. Others claimed that through-out its flight the visitor retained its fiery color. Composition of Meteor Mr. G. F. Dodwell, Government As-tronomer, said that from the descrip-tion it was impossible to determine whether it was a meteor or a meteorite. His hope was that, if a meteorite, it has fallen in his property in the hills. A meteor, he explained, was com-posed of cosmic dust, which takes fire in contact with our atmosphere, and disintegrates in small fragments. A meteorite was of sterner stuff—some-times of iron nickel. In its rush it took fire on the side facing its flight. When a comet lost its tail meteorites developed—probably from the original head of the comet. Meteors and me-teorites have their orbits. In course of time they undergo changes which eventually bring them to the earth.