500-Ton Asteroid Airburst Near Pittsburgh, Penn. June 24, 1938 - 76 yrs Ago / video

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June 24, 1938 - 500-Ton Asteroid Airburst Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - FEMA Region III 
- Chicora "Airavata" Meteor
- 76 Years Ago

Airavata is a mythological white elephant who carries the Hindu god Indra. It is also called 'abhra-Matanga', meaning "elephant of the clouds";
Image and Text Credit - Wikipedia

Chicora Meteor - Pennsylvania Airburst Event 1938 - 12 miles above the Earth
500 tons, 1000000 pounds, is roughly the weight of 83 adult elephants (one adult white elephant weighs approximately 12,000 pounds) ! The  Airavata  meteor or "white elephant" meteor - abhra-Matanga, means the "elephant of the clouds".
LuanrMeteoriteHunter...Tokyo

Posted on YouTube by nemesis maturity 180 views

On June 24, 1938 a meteorite fell in the vicinity of Chicora, Pennsylvania. Named the "Chicora Meteor", the 450+ tonne meteor exploded approximately twelve miles above the Earth's surface. Only two fragments of the meteorite were found following initial investigations. They had masses 242g and 61g, and were discovered some miles short of the calculated point of impact of the main mass - which is yet to be found. Two more small fragments were found nearby in 1940.

Numerous reports of the Chicora Meteor mention that a cow was struck and injured by a falling stone; other accounts say that the cow was in fact killed by the stone.

The meteor was an olivine-hypersthene chondrite. Its remains were split between the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution.

The sound and light of the exploding meteor were initially mistaken for an explosion in the powder magazine at West Winfield, and was compared by investigators FW Preston, EP Henderson and James R Randolph as comparable to with the Halifax explosion of 1917 in destructive power. "If it had landed on Pittsburgh there would have been few survivors", they stated. 
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicora,_Pennsylvania

Catalogue of Meteorites, Fifth Edition, Monica M. Grady, The Natural History Museaum, London , 2000
Entry pg. 143 - - Chicora, Butler County, Pennsylvania, USA / Fall / LL6
"The mass fell some miles short of the calculated point of impact and the main mass may yet be found.  From the smoke and energy considerations the total mass is calculated to be 519 tons."

Book Reference-
Chicora (Butler County, Pa.) Meteorite
United States National Museum, James R. Randolph, Edward Porter Henderson, F. W. Preston
1968 - 35 pages

Meteoritical Bulletin Database-

(click on a Name for more information)

Name	Status	Fall	Year	Place	Type	Mass	Google Earth
Chicora	Official	Y	1938	Penn.	LL6	303 g

Newspaper Article-
Few recall "meteor that nearly destroyed Pittsburgh"
The Pittsburgh Press, June 19, 1988
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19880619&id=X94cAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VmMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1934,1423185

Chicora Meteor originally posted- 24JUN2009

http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.jp/2009/06/pennsylvania-meteormeteorite-history.html

Historical Meteorite Falls for the month of JUNE-
http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.fi/2009/06/historical-meteorite-falls-from-month.html

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