Blood Spatter Flight Characteristics
Experiments with blood have shown that a drop of blood tends to form into a sphere in flight rather than the artistic teardrop shape. This is what one would expect of a fluid in freefall. The formation of the sphere is a result of surface tension that binds the molecules together.
This spherical shape of blood in flight is important for the calculation of the angle of impact (incidence) of blood spatter when it hits a surface. That angle will be used to determine the point from which the blood originated which is called the Point of Origin or more appropriately the Area of Origin.
A single spatter of blood is not enough to determine the Area of Origin at a crime scene. The determination of the angles of impact and placement of the Area of Origin should be based on the consideration of a number of stains and preferably stains from opposite sides of the pattern to create the means to triangulate.
Read more about this topic: Bloodstained
Famous quotes containing the words blood and/or flight:
“A Spirit free, to choose for my own share,
What sort of Flesh and Blood I pleas’d to wear,
I’d be a Dog, a Monkey or a Bear,
Or any thing, but that vain Animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.”
—John Wilmot, 2d Earl Of Rochester (1647–1680)
“In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)