Space and Physics
PUBLISHED
Yesterday, several media outlets reported about the mysterious appearance of a hole on Portmarnock beach, Dublin.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.According to the reports, the crater was found by local resident Dave Kennedy while walking his dog. Inside the hole, he found a rock, which he said he was certain to be a meteorite.
"When I looked at it and saw how uniform it is – the blast crater – I knew immediately that what I was looking at was an impact site," Dave Kennedy, who found the rock, told Virgin Media News.
"As you can tell by here, there's a scorch mark on this side here, so that would have been at the angle it came down at. And it's weighty, I'm not sure of its composition but we're definitely going to have to find out."
He had been planning to send the rock for testing. But wait no longer, Dave, because there is an explanation and it's a doozy. The hole was dug by *drumroll* a bunch of lads having some fun digging a big hole on the beach.
Thousands of meteorites a year do hit Earth. One survey estimated that around 6,100 meteorite falls on Earth during a year, with about 1,800 of those falling over land, so finding one isn't out of the realms of possibility. However on the beach, just like you don't look at a sandcastle and assume volcanic eruption, it's best to keep a skeptical head on and assume someone has just dug a (very nice) big hole.
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