Is it me or does it look like the "meteorite" is moving quite slow. Shouldn't it be moving so fast that you'd need a high speed camera to see it in that detail?
Also...his parachute is always above him, maybe it fell out of that.
It had already entered the atmosphere, and probably slowed down significantly due to friction, then based on its mass it reached a low terminal velocity.
Once the friction of the atmosphere has had a chance to slow it down, what then is the terminal velocity of a rock that size? Not fast is my intuition.
As for falling out of the parachute, and whether it really is a meteorite, the article discusses that: probably not, and almost certainly yes.
No it did not fell out of the parachute. To the obvious:
If it would have been in the parachute, it would be moving at the same velocity as both the parachute and the man. It obviously can't have been under the parachute, it would have droppped instantly, it doesn't.
If it would have been on top of the parachute it would have gotten a push upwards to reduce speed (but its still moving _downwards_ unless some magic explosion happened).
Now according to the video, from the time the parachute opens, it takes roughly 8 seconds (!) until the rock passes. During that time the mans velocity decreased substantially due to the parachute...
The article states that the meteorite already slowed down to around 300 km/h because the incident happened at a low altitude and the heavy braking was already over.
That seems about right... It looks like it travels roughly a meter or so between frames, and the GoPro was likely recording at 60fps, so it was traveling somewhere around 60m/s relative to the parachutist. So add another 10 m/s for rate of descent of the camera and you come up with 252 km/h.
I just spent a while looking up the maths on this and was really surprised to find that the terminal velocity of a spherical rock (diameter 10cm, density 2.5g/cm^3) at this altitude is remarkably close to 300 km/h (I got 340).
Aside: up until now I had imagined that if a skydiver were to ever drop a rock of that size (or a dense piece of equipment like a DSLR) during freefall they would never be able to catch it, but as the terminal velocity of a skydiver in "dart" position is about 320km/h that's not the case. Pretty cool.
Yeah, Occam's razor tells me that it's much more likely that a stone got stuck somewhere in their skydiving apparatus than having a meteorite fly right past you while you're skydiving.
Maybe I'm underestimating the quantity of meteorites falling on the earth but since the newspapers aren't exactly filled with news of people getting killed by falling rocks I'm not yet ready to believe that was a meteorite.
If you look at how a parachute is packed, and how it unfolds when deployed, what you described is definitely not the simpler explanation preferred by Occam's razor.
Well, since it seems I'm in a minority here I'll accept that I might be misjudging the odds on this one, especially since I know nothing about skydiving.
I guess it goes to prove that since nowadays we're almost all carrying video recorders with us at all times the probability of catching the most elusive events on video gets increasingly large. I expect to see a video of someone standing at the foot of a rainbow any day now.
The first guy's chute was open. The rock flew past the first guy. Then a second guy (with his chute not yet open) flew past the first guy. When the rock flew past the first guy, the second guy was above him, and whatever aircraft the second guy jumped from must have also been above him.
Motion blur is a function of distance travelled in screen space per frame and shutter duration, which can be very short for go pro type cameras in bright sunlight. So I wouldn't necessarily expect obvious motion blur.
My understanding is that chutes are packed with great care since they're the only thing stopping one from going "splat!"
I could believe that it's an intentional fake, maybe, but unintentionally packing a good-sized rock seems unlikely... although, I guess it's not as improbable as a meteor sailing past your head while you're skydiving!
It's probably not a fake or packed inside the chute, since he was under canopy for some time when this occurred. Low odds are not zero odds, but then again, it can be a clever April fools segment.
Also, chutes are not packed with great care. A main (the parachute you generally use) takes an experienced packer 5-10 minutes to fully pack and some people hurry through it to get on the next load. Outside of two things you need to get right (make sure the slider is up, make sure lines aren't over the fabric), it will open. Most of the packing is all about reducing the pack volume and slowing down the opening, not ensuring it.
A reserve however (the second chute sport jumpers wear), gets packed by a certified packer and gets re-inspected and repacked at least once every 180 days.
Also...his parachute is always above him, maybe it fell out of that.