Wisconsin Fireball NPR Radio Broadcast

'Fireball' Lights Up Midwest Sky

All Things Considered

Radio Broadcast by National Public Radio April 15, 2010

Wednesday night, a bright light shot across the Midwestern sky. Reports of a fireball were called into police departments in several states. The incident coincided with a meteor shower, but it could have also been a comet or space junk. To find out what it was, Robert Siegel talks with Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. ... [story and broadcast]

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Meteor/Meteorite- Meteorite Hunting on BBC Radio 8NOV09

BBC Radio News- Leading Edge

05/11/2009

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Geoff Watts meets meteorite hunters tracking down the birth of planets.

The oldest rocks on Earth are aliens! They are the left-over building rubble from the formation of the solar system and can be dated to an incredible 4,568 million years old. A surprising number fall to Earth each year as meteorites.

November 5th is probably the worst night of the year for spotting incandescent rocks streaking through the sky, but tracking down a fresh meteorite, before it gets contaminated by terrestrial chemicals, is the ultimate prize for the hunters. A rare few carry complex carbon compounds - perhaps remnants of the material out of which the first life on Earth formed.

Geoff Watts hears from meteorite hunters who scour the deserts of Arizona and Australia and the ice of Canada and Antarctica to seek out extra-terrestrial rocks and meets those who analyse them, using traces of rare elements to track their history and reveal their origins.