But once that skill is learned, a good meteorite hunter can easily spot a single meteorite even if it's surrounded by hundreds of Earth rocks. The skill is most certainly an acquired one. nearest museum for identification and comparison with known meteorites. Always take any suspected meteorite to your nearest museum for identification and comparison with known meteorites. Solid pieces of extraterrestrial debris (meteoroids) can stray from their orbits. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's Department of Mineral Sciences and the Arizona State University Center for Meteorite Studies are not currently doing examinations or testing of specimens from the general public, but check the websites in case their policies have changed. Meteorite identification in the field is one of the most difficult things for an aspiring meteorite hunter to learn. This small meteorite (originally weighing 1 kilogram) was the first discovered in Antarctica and was found by Francis Bickerton in 1912 during Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 191114. Louis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Meteorite information - Washington University in St. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies (The Field Museum, Chicago) Worth - See their I Think I Found A Meteorite page for information on how to schedule an appointment to have your sample examined by an expert. This is a thin black rind, sometimes shiny, sometimes matte black, which forms while falling meteoroids are super-heated in the atmosphere. Recently fallen meteorites will have fusion crust on the outside. Also, keep an eye on the Museum Events page for when the museum will host an Identification Day.Īlso check the outreach information at the Jackson School of Geosciences. Meteorites are dense, they will feel heavier than ordinary Earth rocks of a similar size. The Texas Memorial Museum has a meteorite collection on display in the Hall of Geology and Paleontology which you might want to visit to see some examples of meteorites for comparison. A piece of a meteorite will be carried on board NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission, serving as target practice for a high-precision laser on the rover's arm. We don't have a meteorite specialist in the astronomy department, so here are the steps that we recommend you take to get your rock identified. Over the years we've gotten a fair number of calls and emails about rocks that people think might be meteorites.
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