Tag - micrometeorites

So You Think You Found a Meteorite – Expert Shares Her Secrets for Finding a Meteorite in Your Backyard

A meteorite hit my house back in 2004… and many readers of this blog shared their discoveries. At no time was I ever suggesting that you endanger yourself by climbing up on your roof to drag a magnet through your gutters. But many of you did… and you found lots of cool stuff. Instead of climbing up on your roof, try this – The next time it rains, place a bucket under a drain spout in order to collect a good quantity of rain. Get rid of the leaves and roofing materials and then sift the remains through a bit of old window screen. What you’re after is so small that you’ll need a very strong magnet (neodymium magnet) to find them. Use this super-strong magnet to determine if any of the remaining particles contain iron. Those particles may be space dust, also known as micrometeorites.

Here’s the problem… I’ve always wondered if I really found a meteorite. So I asked meteorite expert, Dr. Suzanne Metlay, to help me solve my quandary. Dr. Metlay was Education Programs Manager at Fiske Planetarium at CU-Boulder until 2008. She is now Operations Director
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A Meteorite Hit My House! How to Use a Neodymium Magnet to Find a Micrometeorite

It’s true. My home in Colorado was hit by a meteorite and I survived the impact. Okay, so maybe the meteorite was small in size… very small… so small you’d need a microscope to see it… but I was hit. Chances are your house has been hit by a few thousand micrometeorites, and you’ll be able to find a few if you know the secret place to look. The next time it rains, place a bucket under a drain spout in order to collect a good quantity of rain. Get rid of the leaves and roofing materials and then sift the remains through a bit of old window screen. What you’re after is so small that you’ll need a very strong magnet (neodymium magnet) to find them. Use this super-strong magnet to determine if any of the remaining particles contain iron. Those particles may be space dust, also known as micrometeorites.

Place the collected particles under a microscope – high power will be required to see them clearly. The micrometeorites will show signs of their fiery trip through the atmosphere — they will be rounded and may have small pits on their surfaces. Most meteorites falling through earth’s atmosphere will burn up before landing on earth, but some will reach the earth in microscopic sizes.

I recently ran across a fantastic article by Robert Beauford who is an expert in all things meteorite. The article steps you through the process of finding micrometeorites and the necessary background to create a killer science fair project.