In the US, if a meteorite lands on your property, it's yours and you can sell or donate it as you please. This homeowner probably made a decent amount on the sale, especially with the emphasis on immediate preservation.
Everybody knows that. You contact NASA. Then a black helicopter will pick you up, bring you to an airbase and fly you straight to the white house, where you will be introduced to the actual truth, while a team of very excited scientists with biohazard suits praise and examine the artefact. If you're still sceptical, they will take you to a large hidden hangar in the middle of the desert and show you around.
Can’t take any US action movie seriously anymore. Not because of plotlines like this, but because they portray the team at the white house as somewhat capable.
You have to suspend your disbelief harder at the 8 o’clock news nowadays.
The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual:
He then immediately preserved and documented the entire scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place the meteorite fragments in glass jars.
I can think of many diverse reactions to a meteor strike, but even NASA is singing the praises of this guy and his quick thinking.
From what I understand about this story, the homeowner had the presence of mind to immediately attempt to preserve the meteorite, which is what made subsequent analysis possible.
Presumably other fragments landing outdoors with no one around taking similar steps to preserve them, even if they were to be recovered, would not be as valuable for study because of their exposure to the natural environment of Earth.
No? It's obvious the meaning is that most meteorites will never be found because they're tiny and no one witnesses where they land. If it hits a house you know where it landed.
"Our cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania, as well as a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey, captured the meteor, and from that we measured its trajectory... The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt."
I don't doubt it, but that's an astounding trajectory estimation...
> The dark flight trajectory of a meteoroid is significantly affected by the atmospheric winds, especially by the jet stream. As a result, the meteorite fall position can be shifted by up to several kilometers compared to a scenario with no winds.
That network is mostly interested in where it falls, not where it came from. A few degrees for finding an origin is a huge variation.
Planetary scientists are motivated to physically examine freshly fallen near pristine samples, yes. They are also keenly interested in origins, intra or extra solar system, relationships to known showers et al.
The less public precursors were and still have an interest in both projected targets and sources.
It's trivial to draw a line between some fixed points and extrapolate back to an origin if there's no external forces acting on the asteroid. But there is - planetary gravity, the moon, potentially the sun heating one side of it, atmospheric wind, weather, etc make a big difference. That makes it harder.
That's basics of meteor observation. As long as camera didn't move, you can plot the track against the stars and time is known. Then with two tracks from different locations, orbit is determined.
Also, a typical consumer camera is going to struggle (even with the best analysis!) to have visual accuracy within even a few degrees of true (due to everything from high compression ratios in post processing to shitty optical properties in the actual camera) and that makes a probability cone that is pretty large.
Browsing that site, The SETI Institute appears to have expanded beyond its original goal of finding extraterrestrial intelligence into astrobiology and more. Perhaps the first attempts at detecting alien radio signals hoped too much?
I have little doubt that, given the infinite size of the universe, that extraterrestrial intelligence (of some sort) exists, the question is whether we will ever detect it... It perhaps even exists as close to us as Europa, should we attempt a landing there...
Detecting radio signals never made much sense to me.
Even a few light years away, it’s almost infeasible to build a radio transmitter that could be detected above the noise floor. The amount of energy you’d need would be absurdly wasteful.
If you’re an alien civilization with several dyson spheres, surely at some point you’d have sufficient energy/resources even for such a “hopeless” science-y project, right?
Source paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea2105
Did someone pay him for the rare meteorite? At least enough to fix the roof?
Who should one contact if this happens?
someone recently SOLD a t-rex skeleton for $50 MILLION (61% complete)
so you should be able to sell meteorites that land on your property
only thing you can't own/sell is NASA Moon Rocks
In the US, if a meteorite lands on your property, it's yours and you can sell or donate it as you please. This homeowner probably made a decent amount on the sale, especially with the emphasis on immediate preservation.
Everybody knows that. You contact NASA. Then a black helicopter will pick you up, bring you to an airbase and fly you straight to the white house, where you will be introduced to the actual truth, while a team of very excited scientists with biohazard suits praise and examine the artefact. If you're still sceptical, they will take you to a large hidden hangar in the middle of the desert and show you around.
Can’t take any US action movie seriously anymore. Not because of plotlines like this, but because they portray the team at the white house as somewhat capable.
You have to suspend your disbelief harder at the 8 o’clock news nowadays.
Watch Don't look up, if you haven't yet, it's brilliant.
I did. It’s depressingly realistic.
The Vogon hyperspace development council.
Now you just need to find their contact details. Beware the Leopard!
The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual:
I can think of many diverse reactions to a meteor strike, but even NASA is singing the praises of this guy and his quick thinking.> The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual:
Maybe chunks hit many people, but you only hear about the ones who are prepped and ready.
I see a parody of preppers in there.
„Your bug out backpack is not enough, you need space bug out backpack”.
> Only one was recovered because it hit a house.
You lost me there.
Is recovery possible only if a house is hit??
From what I understand about this story, the homeowner had the presence of mind to immediately attempt to preserve the meteorite, which is what made subsequent analysis possible.
Presumably other fragments landing outdoors with no one around taking similar steps to preserve them, even if they were to be recovered, would not be as valuable for study because of their exposure to the natural environment of Earth.
No? It's obvious the meaning is that most meteorites will never be found because they're tiny and no one witnesses where they land. If it hits a house you know where it landed.
its like we can explore the universe from our living room
It's like doorstep delivery, but faster and better.
"Our cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania, as well as a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey, captured the meteor, and from that we measured its trajectory... The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt."
I don't doubt it, but that's an astounding trajectory estimation...
Desert Fireball Network, and less public precursor projects have been doing this for a while now:
* https://dfn.gfo.rocks/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fireball_Network
* https://pawsey.org.au/researchers/desert-fireball-network-te...
From the wikipedia link:
> The dark flight trajectory of a meteoroid is significantly affected by the atmospheric winds, especially by the jet stream. As a result, the meteorite fall position can be shifted by up to several kilometers compared to a scenario with no winds.
That network is mostly interested in where it falls, not where it came from. A few degrees for finding an origin is a huge variation.
Planetary scientists are motivated to physically examine freshly fallen near pristine samples, yes. They are also keenly interested in origins, intra or extra solar system, relationships to known showers et al.
The less public precursors were and still have an interest in both projected targets and sources.
This is absolutely trivial as long as any fixed ground objects are visible in a camera and does not at all require some sub-pixel precision.
It's trivial to draw a line between some fixed points and extrapolate back to an origin if there's no external forces acting on the asteroid. But there is - planetary gravity, the moon, potentially the sun heating one side of it, atmospheric wind, weather, etc make a big difference. That makes it harder.
That's basics of meteor observation. As long as camera didn't move, you can plot the track against the stars and time is known. Then with two tracks from different locations, orbit is determined.
Also, a typical consumer camera is going to struggle (even with the best analysis!) to have visual accuracy within even a few degrees of true (due to everything from high compression ratios in post processing to shitty optical properties in the actual camera) and that makes a probability cone that is pretty large.
Still better than nothing, though!
building a WCS model (pixel XY <-> ray vectors) of a camera is a solved science. Of course you can never expect it to be rectangular.
> Researchers found preserved bits from near the surface of the original asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids
Are we sure the guy who picked it up didn't just wash it with some sort of detergent after it cooled off?
Scene one of a Steven Spielberg movie.
If you follow disclosure, scene 1 occured a long, long time ago...
Color Out of Space (2019) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5073642/)
Evolution (2001) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251075/)
Both fun movies, in completely different ways!
Browsing that site, The SETI Institute appears to have expanded beyond its original goal of finding extraterrestrial intelligence into astrobiology and more. Perhaps the first attempts at detecting alien radio signals hoped too much?
I have little doubt that, given the infinite size of the universe, that extraterrestrial intelligence (of some sort) exists, the question is whether we will ever detect it... It perhaps even exists as close to us as Europa, should we attempt a landing there...
Detecting radio signals never made much sense to me.
Even a few light years away, it’s almost infeasible to build a radio transmitter that could be detected above the noise floor. The amount of energy you’d need would be absurdly wasteful.
Wasteful by whose standards?
If you’re an alien civilization with several dyson spheres, surely at some point you’d have sufficient energy/resources even for such a “hopeless” science-y project, right?
No, ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE!