Asteroids are hot on the outside as they burn their way through our atmosphere, explode and land on ice covered lakes without melting through the ice into the lake?
I’d like my mittens made of this stuff next winter:
http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast01jun_1m.htm?list
How could an insulator be this good? (Okay, Manhatten?)
From the article in the link in the OP:
“The outer layers were hot [due to friction with the atmosphere], but carbonaceous chondrites are very porous and don’t conduct heat very well,” he explained. The inside of the object was still frozen by the icy cold of space when the pieces reached the ground."
I think that answers the question.
And in case you wonder why all those people were out there groveling around in the snow, looking for meteorite fragments, it wasn’t because they were so devoted to science–you can really cash in with meteorites. Check out the Meteorite Brokerage.