My favourite part of the flowchart is “has someone seen it fall” -> not a meteorite.
Similarly, while people believe (small) meteorites would be hot upon landing, actually they are usually cold, from going relatively slowly through upper cold atmosphere. So if it’s red hot, it’s probably your neighbour’s barbecue they threw over the fence.
When I was a little kid I used to lay on my back in the garden when there was a clear night sky. I would watch numerous shooting stars and slowly moving dots (turned out to be satellites).
One night laying there, out of the blue, I heard something hit the gravel path that was next to where I was laying. I searched the area where I figured the thing had fallen, but of course I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. There was no light, no sound and no trees from which something could have fallen. I was convinced it was a fragment of a meteorite, but seeing this chart I can only flow this childhood conviction out of existence.
Coming to realize, it was most likely just my dad playing tricks on me. Either way, it still makes me feel warm inside thinking about that moment.
>> "Ann Hodges was taking a nap on her living room couch and she was under a blanket, which probably saved her life somewhat," Prondzinski said. "The meteorite came down through the roof in the living room and it ricocheted off a stand-up console radio that was in the room and landed on her hip."
They are small and fast enough that you wouldn’t notice them.
A 10cm diameter iron meteorite has a terminal velocity of about 600kph / 400mph / 160m/s. And remember it’s not glowing or red hot or followed by a plume of smoke, so you just won’t see it.
So if “someone saw it” it’s either something else, or they are making it up.
> Meteors stop incandescing (the light goes out) tens of kilometers above the Earth’s surface. It takes a few minutes for any surviving fragments to fall to the ground during the “dark flight.” They keep moving in same same general direction, but their fall becomes more vertical and is subject to wind speed and direction. The fragments land at terminal velocity, about 100-200 m/s. Meteorites are not glowing when they hit the ground and they are not hot. Also, meteorites are much smaller than most people think they are, typically a few centimeters in size. This all means that the meteorite fragments land far from where you last saw the meteor and there is no way that observers at a single point on the Earth’s surface are going to find fragments of the meteorite.
It's their way of saying: "Stop calling us. We don't have time to hear why you think that rock is meteorite."
ETA: There was probably an earlier version of that chart without that question, that resulted in everyone thinking "But I saw it fall- the chart must be wrong. Surely the scientists would care about that fact! I'll call them."
Came here to ask that. I think that maybe it's very very unlikely that you can actually find a meteorite that you've seen falling from the sky. So if someone claims they've seen that specific rock fall from the sky they're probably wrong.
If that's not the case can anyone please elaborate on that box?
I think the point is that if you’ve reached that square, there’s absolutely nothing special or interesting about that rock, and the only reason someone might have thought it’s a meteorite (and even be looking at the chart in the first place) is because they saw it fall.
> Since 1900, the numbers of recognized meteorite “falls” is about 690 for the whole Earth. That’s 6.3 per year. Only 98 of those occurred in the US. That’s less than 1 per year. Even when a meteorite is observed to fall, experienced meteorite hunters may find only a few stones when hunting dawn to dusk for a week.
Whatever you do, do not send your meteorite to a scientist or university researcher to verify or examine. Meteorites are valuable and desirable, the scientist will find any excuse to steal your rock. Due to their position and perceived authority, they believe they are entitled to your property; do not trust them.
Edit: Downvote me if you like, but even OPs article admits as much: "Please note that any unsolicited specimen sent to UNLV or our department will not be returned." What I say is well known in the geology hobby. There are only a handful of people who have a good reputation for verifying and returning meteorites. At the very least, do your research and try to find somebody with such a reputation first.
If a bunch of people were sending me random non-meteorites all the time, I'm not gonna pay to send them back either. A case of a solicited one - "yes, that sounds like it could be one, please bring it in" - has a paper trail, on the other hand.
This whole chart is basically a way of them saying "stop sending us shit," which isn't in line with a malicious "please send us everything so we can keep the good stuff" motive.
Ignore my advice and you'll never see your meteorite again. That's really no skin off my back, but I think most people would rather have a neat "maybe-a-meteorite" sitting on their own desk instead of having it sit on the desk of the researcher they sent it to. When these guys open your package to find what they immediately recognize to be a meteorite worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars, I can guarantee you they won't be annoyed at the inconvenience and they sure as shit won't think twice about the return postage you send with it. They'll add it to their collection.
Your advice - don't send them shit - is basically the same as their advice, though, just in your case you have a "maybe a meteorite" that you think is valuable, and in their case you probably just have a rock after following the flowchart.
Even their advice if the flowchart says its interesting is to send pictures next, not send it in.
My own behavior, if I sent pictures and they said "yes, that might be a meteorite" would be to arrange to bring it in in person, sometime.
Mailing it blindly doesn't seem like it should be anyone's first instinct, but they certainly aren't saying anyone should do that.
The advice on that page is to not send your rock to the people at geoscience.unlv.edu, because they specifically will keep your rock. My advice is to not send your rock to any researchers at any organization because virtually all of them will keep your rock.
> Mailing it blindly doesn't seem like it should be anyone's first instinct,
Mailing it blindly? If you first contacted a university researcher asking about a rock and they said "sure send it to me and I'll check it out", and then kept your rock without telling you upfront they would keep it, you would be in good company. A whole lot of people have lost neat artifacts like this. Not just meteorites of course; crystals, fossils, archeological finds. Basically anything you think a scientist might find interesting, the scientist will keep for themselves for the same reason.
I would go so far as to suggest that it is not merely behavior confined to scientists. Any potentially valuable item sent unsolicited to a stranger is unlikely to be returned.
Yup. Even if the scientist wants to give it back their employer has a high likelihood of getting involved and behaving how faceless bureaucratic entities behave.
I had a coworker who had spent time on a research station in Antarctica. He said there were people who came to hunt for meteorites, and they weren’t allowed to keep them. That seemed like a raw deal to me.
> Think of it this way: If you see it driving down the freeway and it has 4 wheels, 2 headlights, and a trunk, it is probably an automobile, not an alien spacecraft.
Personally I find this classification oddly specific, I mean do we really know what all meteorites are made of? Isn't this possible excluding the chance to learn more? Yes, the surface shd have been molten, but apart from that? Why not metal color? Isn't it believed that Guten Hammons dagger was made from meteorite iron?
Like, people can snap a photo of a rock, and it uses (whatever) to make an initial assessment, asking the user whatever further information might help, then sending off snaps/panning-video of interesting rocks.
I found a very large meteorite stuffed away sitting in a dark corner on a dolley at the McDonald Observatory out in West Texas. I doubt they even know it's there, i was thinking of offering to haul away "some junk in the back" for a $10 fee.
Similarly, while people believe (small) meteorites would be hot upon landing, actually they are usually cold, from going relatively slowly through upper cold atmosphere. So if it’s red hot, it’s probably your neighbour’s barbecue they threw over the fence.