Meteorite Finds

________________

Modern era have people been avidly searching for these space rocks.  People find these meteorites all over the world, and each one is important scientifically to the research and advancement of knowledge on the subject of meteorites. There are however some meteorite finds that have impacted the science, and cultural fields more than others.

One of these such impacts, and meteorite finds is the Sikhote-Alin meteorite that fell on February 12, 1947.  The significance of this fall is that it is the largest iron meteorite that has had a witnessed fall.  It exploded several miles above the earth, but still had large enough pieces to hit the ground and send a shockwave 100 miles.  The find of this meteorite brought the discovery of two separate types of meteorite.  Shrapnel pieces that were different, and the standard finger printed pieces that showed the designs left by the melting metal flowing over during the fall.

Another interesting meteorite find is the Peekskill meteorite that was discovered in New York.  After it was tracked by people across several states, its final resting place was discovered when it crashed into a parked car.  The rock hit and went through the parked car.  Because people were recording the fall of this object, and they discovered where it landed, scientists were able to discover a known orbit for this meteorite, one of only four they have been able to determine.

These meteorites were easy to find because the fall was observed, or the impact zone was obvious.  There are lots of meteorites that are much harder to locate and find.  Typically a good area to look for meteorites is sand dunes, or desert regions. There is little ground covering and little rain in these areas, so the meteorites will be visible on the surface of the ground.  A good thing to keep in mind when finding meteorites is that most are magnetic, as they have a high metal content, and this can be used to determine if specific finds might be in fact a meteorite.

Bookmark this page

BlinkList Blogmarks Delicious Digg Diigo Facebook Fark Furl Google Bookmarks Livejournal Ma.gnolia Netvouz Newsvine Reddit Slashdot Smarking Spurl Stumbleupon Technorati Wists Yahoo My Web