Photo of Hopper the famous meteorite finding dog with Rob Wesel, West, TX. Hopper found the meteorite in the photo.Photo courtesy of Mike Bandli; Copyright Rob Wesel, Nakhla Dog Meteorites 2009
28 February 2009
Photo of Hopper the Meteorite Dog 2MAR09
Photo of Hopper the famous meteorite finding dog with Rob Wesel, West, TX. Hopper found the meteorite in the photo.Photo courtesy of Mike Bandli; Copyright Rob Wesel, Nakhla Dog Meteorites 2009
Meteor Photographed Over North Central California 27FEB09
QT Movie http://www.geocities.com/stange34@sbcglobal.net/v20090227_003016.92.movA 6 second plus Fireball 30 minutes & 17 seconds past midnight PST last night (2/27/09) a georgeous Fireball blazed across the N. Central California Area lasting apprx. 6.5 Seconds.
Photo, video and report by Larry Stange
Yuba City Sentinel
Yuba City Sentinel
Object that fell through roof of Dallas home was part of a tree-mulching machine, police say 27FEB09
http://www.startribune.com/nation/40426837.html
Object that fell through roof of Dallas home was part of a tree-mulching machine, police say
Associated Press
February 27, 2009
DALLAS - Police say a 6-pound chunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a Dallas home was part of a machine that was grinding up an unwanted tree nearby. Sgt. Gil Cerda says: "Mystery solved." So much for the theory it could have been a piece of debris from this month's collision of Russian and U.S. satellites.
Cerda says the metal chunk was a grinding tip of a mulching machine being used by a tree disposal service crew. No one was hurt when it went flying Tuesday. Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther said no charges will be filed against the business because it was an accident.
The satellite debris theory also came up when a fireball streaked across the Texas sky Feb. 15. That turned out to be a meteorite. It also surfaced last week when a piece of metal crashed through a New Jersey warehouse. That was another errant piece of a mulching machine.
Object that fell through roof of Dallas home was part of a tree-mulching machine, police say
Associated Press
February 27, 2009
DALLAS - Police say a 6-pound chunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a Dallas home was part of a machine that was grinding up an unwanted tree nearby. Sgt. Gil Cerda says: "Mystery solved." So much for the theory it could have been a piece of debris from this month's collision of Russian and U.S. satellites.
Cerda says the metal chunk was a grinding tip of a mulching machine being used by a tree disposal service crew. No one was hurt when it went flying Tuesday. Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther said no charges will be filed against the business because it was an accident.
The satellite debris theory also came up when a fireball streaked across the Texas sky Feb. 15. That turned out to be a meteorite. It also surfaced last week when a piece of metal crashed through a New Jersey warehouse. That was another errant piece of a mulching machine.
27 February 2009
West, TX-Meteorite hunters are scouring north McLennan County, frustrating some landowners
Meteorite hunters are scouring north McLennan County, frustrating some landowners
Thursday, February 26, 2009
By Ken Sury
Tribune-Herald staff writer
WEST — Meteorite hunters have descended in droves to the countryside surrounding this farming community, searching for the elusive pieces from a fireball that flared across the daytime sky over Central Texas and then broke apart.
But while the fireball and its accompanying sonic boom Feb. 15 were spectacular, West residents say they’ve got better things to do than hunt for the thousands of fragments that litter the land and might not even be on their property.
Spring planting is a focus for the farmers now. That meteorite hunters from across the country are asking to traipse across their fields looking for stones the size of a pecan or smaller at a crucial time for planting has more than a few farmers and ranchers perturbed. In some cases, people didn’t ask and trespassed.
... continued story, video, and photos:
http://www.wacotrib.com/
Thursday, February 26, 2009
By Ken Sury
Tribune-Herald staff writer
WEST — Meteorite hunters have descended in droves to the countryside surrounding this farming community, searching for the elusive pieces from a fireball that flared across the daytime sky over Central Texas and then broke apart.
But while the fireball and its accompanying sonic boom Feb. 15 were spectacular, West residents say they’ve got better things to do than hunt for the thousands of fragments that litter the land and might not even be on their property.
Spring planting is a focus for the farmers now. That meteorite hunters from across the country are asking to traipse across their fields looking for stones the size of a pecan or smaller at a crucial time for planting has more than a few farmers and ranchers perturbed. In some cases, people didn’t ask and trespassed.
... continued story, video, and photos:
http://www.wacotrib.com/
Tamdakht meteorite fall in Morocco is now officially named 27FEB09
The Tamdakht meteorite fall in Morocco is now officially named:
http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/index.php?code=48691
http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/index.php?code=48691
Surfside, Massachusetts Fireball 20FEB09 posted 27FEB09
http://www.ack.net/022609fireball.html
"Fireball" sighting maybe a meteorite
By Eliot Baker
The Inquirer and Mirror (Nantucket, Massachusetts)
February 26, 2009
Island residents are being urged by Maria Mitchell Association director of astronomy, Vladimir Strelnitski, to keep their eyes open for meteorites around Surfside and the south shore in the coming days following an unconfirmed sighting of a fireball blazing across the early-morning sky Friday, Feb. 20 at 4:30 a.m.
Terry Galschneider was up early watching television when she said a dramatic orange fireball "lit up the sky" for five seconds. She said the fireball was too large and bright to have been a shooting star or a helicopter. Her full description to Strelnitski left him to "not exclude that it fell in the ocean, but maybe even on land."The object's brightness suggests it would be relatively close to Galschneider, although its lack of sound made that even less possible to tell for certain. He said it was highly unlikely to have been debris from colliding satellites.The sighting was not confirmed by either Nantucket airport officials orby the police, and no other reports of fiery objects in the sky Friday in Massachusetts have been made to NASA, or to astronomy departments at Boston University, the University Massachusetts at Lowell, or the American Meteor Society. Other islanders who may have spotted the fireball are encouraged to contact Strelnitski at the Maria Mitchell Association at +1(508) 228-5273 .
Though unlikely, Strelnitski said discovering a meteorite - or part of one - on Nantucket would be unprecedented and could yield important information to scientists. People around Surfside especially are encouraged to look for unusual small craters with valleys on the surface with strange objects inside. Meteors can be a piece of metal, a greenish or grayish piece of stone, or a black piece of organic matter that resembles coal called carbonatious condrite, the rarest of all meteorites.
"Fireball" sighting maybe a meteorite
By Eliot Baker
The Inquirer and Mirror (Nantucket, Massachusetts)
February 26, 2009
Island residents are being urged by Maria Mitchell Association director of astronomy, Vladimir Strelnitski, to keep their eyes open for meteorites around Surfside and the south shore in the coming days following an unconfirmed sighting of a fireball blazing across the early-morning sky Friday, Feb. 20 at 4:30 a.m.
Terry Galschneider was up early watching television when she said a dramatic orange fireball "lit up the sky" for five seconds. She said the fireball was too large and bright to have been a shooting star or a helicopter. Her full description to Strelnitski left him to "not exclude that it fell in the ocean, but maybe even on land."The object's brightness suggests it would be relatively close to Galschneider, although its lack of sound made that even less possible to tell for certain. He said it was highly unlikely to have been debris from colliding satellites.The sighting was not confirmed by either Nantucket airport officials orby the police, and no other reports of fiery objects in the sky Friday in Massachusetts have been made to NASA, or to astronomy departments at Boston University, the University Massachusetts at Lowell, or the American Meteor Society. Other islanders who may have spotted the fireball are encouraged to contact Strelnitski at the Maria Mitchell Association at +1(508) 228-5273 .
Though unlikely, Strelnitski said discovering a meteorite - or part of one - on Nantucket would be unprecedented and could yield important information to scientists. People around Surfside especially are encouraged to look for unusual small craters with valleys on the surface with strange objects inside. Meteors can be a piece of metal, a greenish or grayish piece of stone, or a black piece of organic matter that resembles coal called carbonatious condrite, the rarest of all meteorites.
Another meteor impact coincides with large-scale volcanic eruptions -Planet Earth 27FEB09
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=332
Another meteor impact coincides with large-scale volcanic eruptions
---Planet Earth online 23 February 2009
Scientists have long debated the cause of the dinosaurs' extinction about 65 million years ago. The remnants of a large volcanic eruption in the Faroe Islands. These eruptions can go on for millions of years. Around this time a giant meteorite struck the Gulf of Mexico. But the extinction also seems to coincide with massive and long-lasting volcanic eruptions in India known as the Deccan Traps. So which event was responsible? And are these phenomena linked?
New research now shows that this combination of meteorite impact andlarge-scale volcanic activity - known as flood basalt eruptions - is not unique. An international team of researchers looked at a 30-million-year-old meteorite crater in Belarus called Logoisk. They found that this too coincided with volcanic eruptions further south which covered Yemen and Ethiopia with basalt rock. These events are similar to those that occurred 65 million years ago, but on a much smaller scale. The scientists suggest such coincidences may be more common than previously thought. Dr Sarah Sherlock from the Open University and lead author of the paper, says, 'If you have a flood basalt then people wonder if there's also an impact. ''There will be, almost certainly,' she added. According to the paper, a meteorite will strike the Earth and leave a crater the size of Logoisk on average once every 1.5 million years. Flood volcanic eruptions occur over several million years, so a Logoisk-sized crater is likely to occur during each of the 16 identified periods of flood volcanism on Earth in the last 360 million years. However, researchers do not think there is a causal link between flood volcanism and meteorite impact.'There is simply no geological evidence to link the two,' says Sherlock. To determine the precise age of the Logoisk crater the researchers used argon dating. 'Argon dating is very versatile.' said Sherlock. 'It's the only technique that can be used to date both [impacts and flood volcanism].' Samples of material from the crater were gradually heated using an infrared laser, causing the release of argon gas. The ratio of two isotopes of argon released in the gas gives an accurate indication ofthe age of the sample. Using this technique, the researchers showed that the two events occurred simultaneously.
One question raised by the results was why the meteorite impact and flood volcanism 65 million years ago wiped out much of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs, but the similar events 30 million years ago did not. According to Sherlock, it was down to the size of the events.'These coincidences in Earth's history are not as rare as people think,but in order to actually do significant damage to the environment they have to be really, really big.' Sherlock added. Together, the 65-million-year-old Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico and volcanic eruptions that produced the Deccan Traps eruption 65 million years ago released 8000 gigatonnes (Gt) of sulfur dioxide, causing global environmental damage. By comparison the Logoisk and Afro-Arabian events released only 30Gt - insufficient to cause change on a global scale.
The research is published in the Journal of the Geological Society, London.
Another meteor impact coincides with large-scale volcanic eruptions
---Planet Earth online 23 February 2009
Scientists have long debated the cause of the dinosaurs' extinction about 65 million years ago. The remnants of a large volcanic eruption in the Faroe Islands. These eruptions can go on for millions of years. Around this time a giant meteorite struck the Gulf of Mexico. But the extinction also seems to coincide with massive and long-lasting volcanic eruptions in India known as the Deccan Traps. So which event was responsible? And are these phenomena linked?
New research now shows that this combination of meteorite impact andlarge-scale volcanic activity - known as flood basalt eruptions - is not unique. An international team of researchers looked at a 30-million-year-old meteorite crater in Belarus called Logoisk. They found that this too coincided with volcanic eruptions further south which covered Yemen and Ethiopia with basalt rock. These events are similar to those that occurred 65 million years ago, but on a much smaller scale. The scientists suggest such coincidences may be more common than previously thought. Dr Sarah Sherlock from the Open University and lead author of the paper, says, 'If you have a flood basalt then people wonder if there's also an impact. ''There will be, almost certainly,' she added. According to the paper, a meteorite will strike the Earth and leave a crater the size of Logoisk on average once every 1.5 million years. Flood volcanic eruptions occur over several million years, so a Logoisk-sized crater is likely to occur during each of the 16 identified periods of flood volcanism on Earth in the last 360 million years. However, researchers do not think there is a causal link between flood volcanism and meteorite impact.'There is simply no geological evidence to link the two,' says Sherlock. To determine the precise age of the Logoisk crater the researchers used argon dating. 'Argon dating is very versatile.' said Sherlock. 'It's the only technique that can be used to date both [impacts and flood volcanism].' Samples of material from the crater were gradually heated using an infrared laser, causing the release of argon gas. The ratio of two isotopes of argon released in the gas gives an accurate indication ofthe age of the sample. Using this technique, the researchers showed that the two events occurred simultaneously.
One question raised by the results was why the meteorite impact and flood volcanism 65 million years ago wiped out much of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs, but the similar events 30 million years ago did not. According to Sherlock, it was down to the size of the events.'These coincidences in Earth's history are not as rare as people think,but in order to actually do significant damage to the environment they have to be really, really big.' Sherlock added. Together, the 65-million-year-old Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico and volcanic eruptions that produced the Deccan Traps eruption 65 million years ago released 8000 gigatonnes (Gt) of sulfur dioxide, causing global environmental damage. By comparison the Logoisk and Afro-Arabian events released only 30Gt - insufficient to cause change on a global scale.
The research is published in the Journal of the Geological Society, London.
26 February 2009
Comet Lulin visits inner Solar System 26FEB09
http://astronomynow.com/090223CometLulinvisitsinnerSolarSystem.html
Comet Lulin visits inner Solar System
BY DR EMILY BALDWIN
ASTRONOMY NOW
23 February, 2009
On 24 February Comet Lulin will make its first visit to the inner Solar System, streaking past the Earth at a distance of 38 million miles, or 160 times further than the Moon. Comet Lulin, formally known as C/2007 N3, was discovered last year byastronomers at Taiwan's Lulin Observatory. Nicknamed the "green comet", Lulin's atmosphere contains poisonous cyanogen and diatomic carbongases. Researchers at the University of Leicester will be using NASA's Swift satellite to monitor the comet in X-ray, ultraviolet and optical light as it closes in on the Earth this week.
"The wonderful ease of scheduling of Swift and its joint UV and X-raycapability make Swift the observatory of choice for observations like these," says Dr Julian Osborne, leader of the Swift project at Leicester. The University of Leicester played a major role in developing Swift's X-Ray Telescope.
[Image]
This image of Comet Lulin taken 28 Jan merges data acquired by Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (blue and green) and X-Ray Telescope (red). At the time of the observation, the comet was 99.5 million milesfrom Earth and 115.3 million miles from the Sun. Image: Univ. of Leicester/NASA/Swift/Carter et al. Comets are thought to represent some of the most pristine ingredients ofthe Solar System. They are made up of dust, gas and ice, and as they approach the Sun, the frozen components sublime and stream out in tails. Swift observations of the comet on 28 January revealed that it is certainly active. "The UVOT data show that Lulin was shedding nearly 800 gallons of water each second," says team member Dennis Bodewits, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,which is enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in less than 15 minutes. Although Swift can't see water directly, ultraviolet light from the Sunquickly breaks apart water molecules into hydrogen atoms and hydroxyl (OH) molecules, the latter of which Swift's Ultraviolet/OpticalTelescopes (UVOT) can detect. "This gives us a unique view into the types and quantities of gas a comet produces," Bodewits explains. The images taken so far reveal a hydroxyl cloud spanning a distance greater than the distance between Earth and the Moon, and a tail streaming off at an angle. Solar radiation pushes the icy grains awayfrom the comet, and as they gradually evaporate, they create a thin tail of hydroxyl molecules. Farther from the comet, even the hydroxyl molecule succumbs to solar ultraviolet radiation, breaking into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen atoms."The solar wind - a fast-moving stream of particles from the Sun -interacts with the comet's broader cloud of atoms," says Stefan Immler, also at Goddard. "This causes the solar wind to light up with X-rays,and that's what Swift's XRT sees." This interaction, called charge exchange, results in X-rays from most comets when they pass within about three times Earth's distance from the Sun. Because Lulin is so active and is losing a lot of gas, its X-ray emitting region extends in a largecloud far sunward of the comet. The team hope that the forthcoming observations of Lulin will reveal more on the comet's chemistry andenable scientists to build up a three-dimensional picture of the cometduring its maiden voyage through the Solar System.Comet Lulin will be visible to the naked eye, and for most locations inthe Northern Hemisphere will be easiest to spot after midnight when itis high in the sky. In small telescopes it will appear as a dim fuzzy"star" - brighter in the centre and more diffuse around the edges. It will fade from view by mid-March.
Comet Lulin visits inner Solar System
BY DR EMILY BALDWIN
ASTRONOMY NOW
23 February, 2009
On 24 February Comet Lulin will make its first visit to the inner Solar System, streaking past the Earth at a distance of 38 million miles, or 160 times further than the Moon. Comet Lulin, formally known as C/2007 N3, was discovered last year byastronomers at Taiwan's Lulin Observatory. Nicknamed the "green comet", Lulin's atmosphere contains poisonous cyanogen and diatomic carbongases. Researchers at the University of Leicester will be using NASA's Swift satellite to monitor the comet in X-ray, ultraviolet and optical light as it closes in on the Earth this week.
"The wonderful ease of scheduling of Swift and its joint UV and X-raycapability make Swift the observatory of choice for observations like these," says Dr Julian Osborne, leader of the Swift project at Leicester. The University of Leicester played a major role in developing Swift's X-Ray Telescope.
[Image]
This image of Comet Lulin taken 28 Jan merges data acquired by Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (blue and green) and X-Ray Telescope (red). At the time of the observation, the comet was 99.5 million milesfrom Earth and 115.3 million miles from the Sun. Image: Univ. of Leicester/NASA/Swift/Carter et al. Comets are thought to represent some of the most pristine ingredients ofthe Solar System. They are made up of dust, gas and ice, and as they approach the Sun, the frozen components sublime and stream out in tails. Swift observations of the comet on 28 January revealed that it is certainly active. "The UVOT data show that Lulin was shedding nearly 800 gallons of water each second," says team member Dennis Bodewits, a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,which is enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in less than 15 minutes. Although Swift can't see water directly, ultraviolet light from the Sunquickly breaks apart water molecules into hydrogen atoms and hydroxyl (OH) molecules, the latter of which Swift's Ultraviolet/OpticalTelescopes (UVOT) can detect. "This gives us a unique view into the types and quantities of gas a comet produces," Bodewits explains. The images taken so far reveal a hydroxyl cloud spanning a distance greater than the distance between Earth and the Moon, and a tail streaming off at an angle. Solar radiation pushes the icy grains awayfrom the comet, and as they gradually evaporate, they create a thin tail of hydroxyl molecules. Farther from the comet, even the hydroxyl molecule succumbs to solar ultraviolet radiation, breaking into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen atoms."The solar wind - a fast-moving stream of particles from the Sun -interacts with the comet's broader cloud of atoms," says Stefan Immler, also at Goddard. "This causes the solar wind to light up with X-rays,and that's what Swift's XRT sees." This interaction, called charge exchange, results in X-rays from most comets when they pass within about three times Earth's distance from the Sun. Because Lulin is so active and is losing a lot of gas, its X-ray emitting region extends in a largecloud far sunward of the comet. The team hope that the forthcoming observations of Lulin will reveal more on the comet's chemistry andenable scientists to build up a three-dimensional picture of the cometduring its maiden voyage through the Solar System.Comet Lulin will be visible to the naked eye, and for most locations inthe Northern Hemisphere will be easiest to spot after midnight when itis high in the sky. In small telescopes it will appear as a dim fuzzy"star" - brighter in the centre and more diffuse around the edges. It will fade from view by mid-March.
Norton County, KS fall 18FEB1948 more than 60 years ago 26FEB09
La Paz (right) directing recovery of the massive Norton County, Kansas meteorite, 1948.
University of New Mexico collection
NORTON COUNTY, Kansas, USA - Witnessed Fall - 18FEB1948 --61 years ago
--------------------------
After a brilliant fireball and a tremendous noise, a huge shower of stones fell over a large area of Norton County, Kansas, and Furnas County, Nebraska. This meteorite, which fell on 18 February 1948, 16:56hrs, was named Norton County, and classified as an Achondrite, Ca-poor, Aubrite, fragmental breccia. Aubrites are quite rare and this is the largest known in historical times. The main mass weighing more than 1070 kg is the center of the meteorite display at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Norton County is a very historical and scientifically valuable meteorite and almost impossible to obtain as nearly all of the material is in the University of New Mexico collection.
Catalogue of Meteorites by Grady, M. , 2000
25 February 2009
'Dinosaur-killing' impact did not start global wildfires 25FEB09
Published online 23 February 2009 Nature doi:10.1038/news.2009.112 Corrected online:
24 February 2009
NATURE NEWS
'Dinosaur-killing' impact did not start global wildfires
by Philip Ball
Burnt oil and gas, not vegetation, may have caused the soot layer at the end of the Cretaceous period.
The impact of a huge asteroid or comet at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago is generally held responsible for the sudden demise of 60–80% of all species on Earth. But new results challenge the common idea that the extinctions were partly caused by global wildfires triggered by the violent impact.
... full story:
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090223/full/news.2009.112.html
24 February 2009
NATURE NEWS
'Dinosaur-killing' impact did not start global wildfires
by Philip Ball
Burnt oil and gas, not vegetation, may have caused the soot layer at the end of the Cretaceous period.
The impact of a huge asteroid or comet at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago is generally held responsible for the sudden demise of 60–80% of all species on Earth. But new results challenge the common idea that the extinctions were partly caused by global wildfires triggered by the violent impact.
... full story:
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090223/full/news.2009.112.html
24 February 2009
West, TX meteorite classified by Dr. Alan Rubin 22FEB09
Dr. Alan Rubin, UCLA, has analyzed the West, TX meteorite as an L6 chondrite:
W0, S3, L6 olivine
Fa: 24.2±0.2 (n=12)low-Ca pyx Fs20.5±0.7 Wo1.6±0.2 (n=12)
kamacite has an average composition of Fe 93.1 Ni 5.8 Co 0.83 (n=4) taenite has an average composition of Fe 69.6 Ni 30.3 Co 0.30 (n=9) Taenite is much more abundant than kamacite. Many plagioclase grains exceed 50 µm in size. Some metal grains have irregular grains of troilite inside them. Metallic Cu is present in metal grains. There are some thin metal- and sulfide-bearing shock veins. The rock exhibits signficant silicate darkening.
The "Ash Creek" (Doug Dawn`s proposed name for the meteorite) meteorite sample was collected by Doug Dawn, Dima, Rob McCafferty, and Sergey and sent to Dr. Rubin for analysis.
The data from Dr. Rubin`s classification analysis will be sent to the Meteorite NOMCOM for approval and a final naming will be approved.
Record timing for meteorite recovery and analysis; congratulations to all that worked on this!!!
W0, S3, L6 olivine
Fa: 24.2±0.2 (n=12)low-Ca pyx Fs20.5±0.7 Wo1.6±0.2 (n=12)
kamacite has an average composition of Fe 93.1 Ni 5.8 Co 0.83 (n=4) taenite has an average composition of Fe 69.6 Ni 30.3 Co 0.30 (n=9) Taenite is much more abundant than kamacite. Many plagioclase grains exceed 50 µm in size. Some metal grains have irregular grains of troilite inside them. Metallic Cu is present in metal grains. There are some thin metal- and sulfide-bearing shock veins. The rock exhibits signficant silicate darkening.
The "Ash Creek" (Doug Dawn`s proposed name for the meteorite) meteorite sample was collected by Doug Dawn, Dima, Rob McCafferty, and Sergey and sent to Dr. Rubin for analysis.
The data from Dr. Rubin`s classification analysis will be sent to the Meteorite NOMCOM for approval and a final naming will be approved.
Record timing for meteorite recovery and analysis; congratulations to all that worked on this!!!
Amateur astronomer finds meteorites near Waco 22FEB09
Update on West, Tx meteorite:
Amateur astronomer finds meteorites near Waco
Updated: 2/22/2009 7:08 PM
By: Veronica Castelo
NEWS 8 Austin
..."Now there's actual physical proof that it was a meteor. Amateur astronomer Doug Dawn and his team say they were able to find meteorites. Dawn's team analyzed the video footage shot by News 8 photographer Eddie Garcia. Dawn said there was a lot of information available in the film and it helped with calculations of where the material was coming from. "...
For the whole story and TV video:
http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=232800&SecID=2
Amateur astronomer finds meteorites near Waco
Updated: 2/22/2009 7:08 PM
By: Veronica Castelo
NEWS 8 Austin
..."Now there's actual physical proof that it was a meteor. Amateur astronomer Doug Dawn and his team say they were able to find meteorites. Dawn's team analyzed the video footage shot by News 8 photographer Eddie Garcia. Dawn said there was a lot of information available in the film and it helped with calculations of where the material was coming from. "...
For the whole story and TV video:
http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=232800&SecID=2
22 February 2009
Hopper the Dog Finds Meteorite- West, TX 21FEB09
There is indeed a meteorite finding dog! - Hopper the Dog*
Here's the story.
On Friday Sonny, Steve Arnold and I (Ruben Garcia) drove into the strewnfield bright and early and immediately started knocking on doors to try to gain permission to hunt. Upon walking up to a particular house Sonny spotted a meteorite on the porch (about 70-90 grams) he picked it up, and laid it backdown. "Ruben, did you see that fully crusted meteorite on the porch?" He Said. I couldn't believe it. He was right! Right there on the porch but no one was home...what to do? Since Sonny assured me that he wasn't going to buy meteorites when he could find them I decided to track down the owner and try to buy the specimen. I got the owners work phone number from a neighbor and called. After introducing myself and explaining what I was in town for, I told the owner that there was a meteorite on their porch. "What, you mean that black rock that the dog, Hopper, brought up and dropped on the porch?" "Yes, that one" I said. Needless to say, I drove down and did a nice video interview with the owner holding the space rock and recalling the tale.
Written by: Ruben Garcia
Here's the story.
On Friday Sonny, Steve Arnold and I (Ruben Garcia) drove into the strewnfield bright and early and immediately started knocking on doors to try to gain permission to hunt. Upon walking up to a particular house Sonny spotted a meteorite on the porch (about 70-90 grams) he picked it up, and laid it backdown. "Ruben, did you see that fully crusted meteorite on the porch?" He Said. I couldn't believe it. He was right! Right there on the porch but no one was home...what to do? Since Sonny assured me that he wasn't going to buy meteorites when he could find them I decided to track down the owner and try to buy the specimen. I got the owners work phone number from a neighbor and called. After introducing myself and explaining what I was in town for, I told the owner that there was a meteorite on their porch. "What, you mean that black rock that the dog, Hopper, brought up and dropped on the porch?" "Yes, that one" I said. Needless to say, I drove down and did a nice video interview with the owner holding the space rock and recalling the tale.
Written by: Ruben Garcia
First Tracked Rock Recovered in Sudan (Asteroid 2008 TC3) 21FEB09
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16635-first-tracked-space-rock-recovered-after-impact
First tracked space rock recovered after impact-0246 GMT on 7 October-Sudan (Asteroid 2008 TC3)
by David Shiga
New Scientist
February 19, 2009
The discovery of meteorites from an asteroid that exploded over Sudan in October completes an astronomical trifecta. For the first time, scientists have detected a space rock ahead of a collision with Earth, watched it streak through the atmosphere, and then recovered pieces of it. Analysis of the meteorites could shed light on conditions in the early solar system more than 4 billion years ago. When the asteroid, called 2008 TC3, was discovered on 6 October last year, it was just 20 hours away from hitting Earth. Though the warning period was short, it was the first time a space rock had been found before it impacted the planet. Orbital calculations predicted the object would plunge into the atmosphere above Sudan at 0246 GMT on 7 October, and it arrived right ontime. Observations suggested it was no more than 5 metres across, too small to survive intact all the way to the ground and cause damage. The brilliant fireball it made as it descended through the atmosphere was seen far in the distance by the crew of a KLM airliner, and was observed by various satellites, including a weather satellite called Meteosat-8. Now, a team of meteorite hunters has found fragments of the object. The meteorites are a unique group in that they come from an object seen hurtling through space before its plunge into Earth's atmosphere.
Numerous fragments
Students from the University of Khartoum, led by Dr Muawia Shaddad, found the first fragments using data provided by NASA to home in onwhere fragments were likely to be found. Scientists involved with the discovery, including Peter Jenniskens ofthe SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, have reportedly submitted a study about the find to a scientific journal, and have not responded to interview requests. But Lindley Johnson, head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program office atthe agency's headquarters in Washington, DC, reported the find on Mondayin Vienna, at a United Nations meeting discussing near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. <http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/en/COPUOS/stsc/2009/index.html>
An image of the first fragment found is included in the slides from Johnson's presentation (pdf) <http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/pdf/pres/stsc2009/tech-25.pdf> (see slide 19).
Donald Yeomans, who manages NASA's efforts to find and track NEOs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, confirmed that"quite a few" fragments have been found but declined to discuss them further.
Weak material?
Before the fragments were found, meteorite expert Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario in Canada said the asteroid was likely made of relatively weak material, given that 2008 TC3 broke up unusually quickly once it hit the atmosphere, exploding about 37 kilometres above ground. Another object known to have broken up at about this height scattered fragments over Tagish Lake in Canada in 2000. The Tagish Lake meteorites turned out to be made of a very crumbly material, and fall into a class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites, which have been modified little by heat or other processes since the solar system formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. "I would caution making direct compositional comparisons [with the Tagish Lake meteorites], but it does certainly underscore the global weakness of [2008 TC3]," Brown said in comments posted on the JPL website in November. He added that observations of the rock's quick breakup "all but rule out" a composition rich in iron. <http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/2008tc3.html>
Point of origin
When the analysis of these rock fragments does come out, what is it likely to tell us? Meteorites in general provide a valuable record of conditions in the early solar system, such as temperature and chemical composition. And the 2008 TC3 meteorites could be especially illuminating because the parent object was observed in space before the breakup, allowing scientists to calculate its former orbit around the Sun. This provides precious information connecting the meteorites to their place of origin in the solar system. For most other meteorites, such calculations involve a lot of guesswork. Meteorites had previously been recovered after about 10 "fireball" events, where parent space rocks were observed streaking through the sky. But in those cases, scientists had to try to reconstruct the object's orbit based on its path through the atmosphere. "It's often very difficult to get from a streak in the sky to what theorbit was," says Allan Treiman of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Tucson, Arizona. "But if they've got its location before it hit the atmosphere, they're far better off - that's really wonderful."
First tracked space rock recovered after impact-0246 GMT on 7 October-Sudan (Asteroid 2008 TC3)
by David Shiga
New Scientist
February 19, 2009
The discovery of meteorites from an asteroid that exploded over Sudan in October completes an astronomical trifecta. For the first time, scientists have detected a space rock ahead of a collision with Earth, watched it streak through the atmosphere, and then recovered pieces of it. Analysis of the meteorites could shed light on conditions in the early solar system more than 4 billion years ago. When the asteroid, called 2008 TC3, was discovered on 6 October last year, it was just 20 hours away from hitting Earth. Though the warning period was short, it was the first time a space rock had been found before it impacted the planet. Orbital calculations predicted the object would plunge into the atmosphere above Sudan at 0246 GMT on 7 October, and it arrived right ontime. Observations suggested it was no more than 5 metres across, too small to survive intact all the way to the ground and cause damage. The brilliant fireball it made as it descended through the atmosphere was seen far in the distance by the crew of a KLM airliner, and was observed by various satellites, including a weather satellite called Meteosat-8. Now, a team of meteorite hunters has found fragments of the object. The meteorites are a unique group in that they come from an object seen hurtling through space before its plunge into Earth's atmosphere.
Numerous fragments
Students from the University of Khartoum, led by Dr Muawia Shaddad, found the first fragments using data provided by NASA to home in onwhere fragments were likely to be found. Scientists involved with the discovery, including Peter Jenniskens ofthe SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, have reportedly submitted a study about the find to a scientific journal, and have not responded to interview requests. But Lindley Johnson, head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program office atthe agency's headquarters in Washington, DC, reported the find on Mondayin Vienna, at a United Nations meeting discussing near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. <http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/en/COPUOS/stsc/2009/index.html>
An image of the first fragment found is included in the slides from Johnson's presentation (pdf) <http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/pdf/pres/stsc2009/tech-25.pdf> (see slide 19).
Donald Yeomans, who manages NASA's efforts to find and track NEOs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, confirmed that"quite a few" fragments have been found but declined to discuss them further.
Weak material?
Before the fragments were found, meteorite expert Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario in Canada said the asteroid was likely made of relatively weak material, given that 2008 TC3 broke up unusually quickly once it hit the atmosphere, exploding about 37 kilometres above ground. Another object known to have broken up at about this height scattered fragments over Tagish Lake in Canada in 2000. The Tagish Lake meteorites turned out to be made of a very crumbly material, and fall into a class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites, which have been modified little by heat or other processes since the solar system formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. "I would caution making direct compositional comparisons [with the Tagish Lake meteorites], but it does certainly underscore the global weakness of [2008 TC3]," Brown said in comments posted on the JPL website in November. He added that observations of the rock's quick breakup "all but rule out" a composition rich in iron. <http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/2008tc3.html>
Point of origin
When the analysis of these rock fragments does come out, what is it likely to tell us? Meteorites in general provide a valuable record of conditions in the early solar system, such as temperature and chemical composition. And the 2008 TC3 meteorites could be especially illuminating because the parent object was observed in space before the breakup, allowing scientists to calculate its former orbit around the Sun. This provides precious information connecting the meteorites to their place of origin in the solar system. For most other meteorites, such calculations involve a lot of guesswork. Meteorites had previously been recovered after about 10 "fireball" events, where parent space rocks were observed streaking through the sky. But in those cases, scientists had to try to reconstruct the object's orbit based on its path through the atmosphere. "It's often very difficult to get from a streak in the sky to what theorbit was," says Allan Treiman of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Tucson, Arizona. "But if they've got its location before it hit the atmosphere, they're far better off - that's really wonderful."
West, TX Meteorite Fall Report 21FE09
Hello from Sunny Texas, under clear and starry-eyed skies at the moment, A few stones were found right at the time of the fall, however, they were not definitively identified as meteorites - though that was the suspicion and they were saved.
We (Doug Dawn, Dmitry Sadilenko, Sergey Petukov) drove across the country and estimated the location of the strewn field within 48 hours of the event. With a bit of tenacity, scarcely four hours after the second day, thanks to the help of some Texas-sized hospitality, we arrived in the strewn field and found our first couple of stones and I had the distinct pleasure of shaking the finders hand and removing any lingering doubts in his mind that he had meteorites fresh from Heaven's farm. After the initial success, my good friend and asteroid hunter, Rob Matson of Los Angeles, joined up with the team. We have found some stones, but more are being found by others, and we really expect larger masses to be found, though hard work in the field definitely gets you wondering if just because such a meteoritical spectacle drops one stone, should it drop the thousands we keep expecting to see? The TKW is rapidly evolving, but the area is being hit quite hard by hunters already. This doesn't seem to be a dense fall, and some areas are very easy to search, though bramble in other areas effectively keeps those off limits. All land is private and most families keep their gun collections well oiled. In our case, the big-hearts of the landowners have humbled easily as much as the witness reports of the bolide's fragmenting itself. This is at odds with some other reports, only because residents of the area treasure their privacy and were completely overwhelmed by the wave of treasure hunters that descended. We almost lost our permission to hunt when they believed that we were somehow responsible for several meteorite hunters showing up with a news crews. Besides being quite busy, I promised to respect the anonymity of our hosts as a condition of our search, and this evening we reaped the benefits of a delicious home-cooked dinner prepared by the caring hands of our hosts at their dinner table. There is a great Texas steakhouse on I-35 which adds to the flavor for anyone wanting to experience Texas culture, cowboys and pretty cowgirls from West, TX. It has been an incredible last few days, which started by being the first to walk in a virgin strewn field, though my mother had some problems (she seems better now) that have somewhat muted what will undoubtedly be some of the most memorable moments of my life. It is way past bedtime and I will post more tomorrow. The meteorite itself is moderately to highly shocked and has a very bright, light, interior and veins of troilite and nodules of metal, and the majority of stones found are fully fusion crusted. More on the classification on Saturday. We certainly were not in a mass-laden portion of the strewn field, other hunters please take note; more likely just a place where a minor fragmentation impacted. In any case, we are committed to getting the science done so everyone else can rest assured that we have already gladly provided the mass requirements necessary for this honor. All in all, a very humbling experience for many reasons. To pick up a piece of a falling star and I thought, detect a faint sulfurous odor. It seems a dog even caught the scent of a meteorite and laid it down on the owners porch!
Best wishes and clear skies, Doug
Written by: Doug Dawn posted to the MetList- Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
We (Doug Dawn, Dmitry Sadilenko, Sergey Petukov) drove across the country and estimated the location of the strewn field within 48 hours of the event. With a bit of tenacity, scarcely four hours after the second day, thanks to the help of some Texas-sized hospitality, we arrived in the strewn field and found our first couple of stones and I had the distinct pleasure of shaking the finders hand and removing any lingering doubts in his mind that he had meteorites fresh from Heaven's farm. After the initial success, my good friend and asteroid hunter, Rob Matson of Los Angeles, joined up with the team. We have found some stones, but more are being found by others, and we really expect larger masses to be found, though hard work in the field definitely gets you wondering if just because such a meteoritical spectacle drops one stone, should it drop the thousands we keep expecting to see? The TKW is rapidly evolving, but the area is being hit quite hard by hunters already. This doesn't seem to be a dense fall, and some areas are very easy to search, though bramble in other areas effectively keeps those off limits. All land is private and most families keep their gun collections well oiled. In our case, the big-hearts of the landowners have humbled easily as much as the witness reports of the bolide's fragmenting itself. This is at odds with some other reports, only because residents of the area treasure their privacy and were completely overwhelmed by the wave of treasure hunters that descended. We almost lost our permission to hunt when they believed that we were somehow responsible for several meteorite hunters showing up with a news crews. Besides being quite busy, I promised to respect the anonymity of our hosts as a condition of our search, and this evening we reaped the benefits of a delicious home-cooked dinner prepared by the caring hands of our hosts at their dinner table. There is a great Texas steakhouse on I-35 which adds to the flavor for anyone wanting to experience Texas culture, cowboys and pretty cowgirls from West, TX. It has been an incredible last few days, which started by being the first to walk in a virgin strewn field, though my mother had some problems (she seems better now) that have somewhat muted what will undoubtedly be some of the most memorable moments of my life. It is way past bedtime and I will post more tomorrow. The meteorite itself is moderately to highly shocked and has a very bright, light, interior and veins of troilite and nodules of metal, and the majority of stones found are fully fusion crusted. More on the classification on Saturday. We certainly were not in a mass-laden portion of the strewn field, other hunters please take note; more likely just a place where a minor fragmentation impacted. In any case, we are committed to getting the science done so everyone else can rest assured that we have already gladly provided the mass requirements necessary for this honor. All in all, a very humbling experience for many reasons. To pick up a piece of a falling star and I thought, detect a faint sulfurous odor. It seems a dog even caught the scent of a meteorite and laid it down on the owners porch!
Best wishes and clear skies, Doug
Written by: Doug Dawn posted to the MetList- Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
20 February 2009
Mike Farmer`s Team Finds Three More Today 19FEB09
West, Texas Meteorite found by (c) Michael Farmer 2009I just spoke with Mike Farmer on the telephone and they have found three more meteorites today. He said that the area is mostly farm and pasture land making it not the most idea for hunting conditions.
UNT astronomy workers say they found 2 samples of meteor 19FEB09
UNT astronomy workers say they found 2 samples of meteor
03:14 PM CST on Thursday, February 19, 2009
By SARAH PERRY / The Dallas Morning News
Ron DiIulio slept for only an hour last night.
The director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas couldn’t help but stay awake and study the pieces of a meteorite he found with a co-worker Wednesday.
MAX FAULKNER/Special Contributor Ron DiIulio (left), director of UNT's planetarium and astronomy lab program, and UNT observatory manager Preston Starr found these fragments, believed to be from a meteor that burned up in the earth's atmosphere earlier this week, in a pasture in West.
DiIulio and Preston Starr, the observatory manager at UNT, discovered the remnants of a meteor spotted shooting across the Texas sky Sunday.
They found the two walnut-sized fragments off a road in West, a town about 70 miles south of Dallas.
DiIulio has found other meteorites before, but these pieces are special. “To get something from space ... that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he said. “And these are pristine.”
Immediately after learning about the sighting, the two men began to pinpoint the possible location with information from witnesses. The pair systematically mapped the locations and narrowed down the spot to somewhere near Fayetteville, about 230 miles south of Dallas.
They guessed wrong.
DiIulio said he and Starr wound their way to West and stopped at the Czech Bakery for a snack. A farmer, who noticed their official NASA-UNT outfits, approached them and asked what they were doing.
“Are you guys looking for the sonic boom that rattled my walls?” DiIulio recalled the farmer asking.
The farmer told the professors they should head southeast of West.
DiIulio and Starr spotted the sheriff and a deputy at a gas station near the location provided by the farmer. The deputy owned some land nearby and offered to help them find the meteorite.
At 5 p.m., after walking a few minutes down a gravel road, Starr and DiIulio spotted it - a small, charcoal-colored ball. Five minutes later, they found another.
They didn’t use any fancy electronics - just a map, truck and their eyes.
“Imagine that,” DiIulio said. “A little piece of charcoal sitting on a gravel road right there.”
The pair were lucky they found the pieces first, he said. Scientists from Moscow and two men from Tucson were also on the prowl.
DiIulio and Starr wrapped the pieces in a Ziploc bag and took them back to UNT, where they are conducting a radioisotope study today. The study will give clues about other matter in space.
DiIulio said it was important to find the pieces quickly because they start to lose certain characteristics once they hit the earth’s atmosphere.
Alan Rubin, a research geochemist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the meteorite that landed in Texas is among the most common kinds -- an ordinary chondrite.
He said his lab had been called on to analyzed a piece of the substance -- not from the chunks that DiIulio and Starr found -- and "it's a real meteorite, not a piece of a satellite."
Though meteorites are found all over world, DiIulio considers himself lucky. Mostly what's out there are tiny pieces -- some as small as a grain of sand.
“Every once in a while ... you get this,” he said.
Austin- Fox News Video: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/news/021909_Meteorite_Pieces_Located_in_West_TX
03:14 PM CST on Thursday, February 19, 2009
By SARAH PERRY / The Dallas Morning News
Ron DiIulio slept for only an hour last night.
The director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas couldn’t help but stay awake and study the pieces of a meteorite he found with a co-worker Wednesday.
MAX FAULKNER/Special Contributor Ron DiIulio (left), director of UNT's planetarium and astronomy lab program, and UNT observatory manager Preston Starr found these fragments, believed to be from a meteor that burned up in the earth's atmosphere earlier this week, in a pasture in West.
DiIulio and Preston Starr, the observatory manager at UNT, discovered the remnants of a meteor spotted shooting across the Texas sky Sunday.
They found the two walnut-sized fragments off a road in West, a town about 70 miles south of Dallas.
DiIulio has found other meteorites before, but these pieces are special. “To get something from space ... that’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he said. “And these are pristine.”
Immediately after learning about the sighting, the two men began to pinpoint the possible location with information from witnesses. The pair systematically mapped the locations and narrowed down the spot to somewhere near Fayetteville, about 230 miles south of Dallas.
They guessed wrong.
DiIulio said he and Starr wound their way to West and stopped at the Czech Bakery for a snack. A farmer, who noticed their official NASA-UNT outfits, approached them and asked what they were doing.
“Are you guys looking for the sonic boom that rattled my walls?” DiIulio recalled the farmer asking.
The farmer told the professors they should head southeast of West.
DiIulio and Starr spotted the sheriff and a deputy at a gas station near the location provided by the farmer. The deputy owned some land nearby and offered to help them find the meteorite.
At 5 p.m., after walking a few minutes down a gravel road, Starr and DiIulio spotted it - a small, charcoal-colored ball. Five minutes later, they found another.
They didn’t use any fancy electronics - just a map, truck and their eyes.
“Imagine that,” DiIulio said. “A little piece of charcoal sitting on a gravel road right there.”
The pair were lucky they found the pieces first, he said. Scientists from Moscow and two men from Tucson were also on the prowl.
DiIulio and Starr wrapped the pieces in a Ziploc bag and took them back to UNT, where they are conducting a radioisotope study today. The study will give clues about other matter in space.
DiIulio said it was important to find the pieces quickly because they start to lose certain characteristics once they hit the earth’s atmosphere.
Alan Rubin, a research geochemist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the meteorite that landed in Texas is among the most common kinds -- an ordinary chondrite.
He said his lab had been called on to analyzed a piece of the substance -- not from the chunks that DiIulio and Starr found -- and "it's a real meteorite, not a piece of a satellite."
Though meteorites are found all over world, DiIulio considers himself lucky. Mostly what's out there are tiny pieces -- some as small as a grain of sand.
“Every once in a while ... you get this,” he said.
Austin- Fox News Video: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/news/021909_Meteorite_Pieces_Located_in_West_TX
More on West, Texas Meteorites 19FEB09
Meteorite hunters searching near West find what they believe was part of Sunday's rumble and flash in the sky
Thursday, February 19, 2009
By Ken Sury
Tribune-Herald staff writer
A reporter was talking with a pair of meteorite hunters Wednesday afternoon when one of them suddenly bent down and picked something up off the dirt, less than a foot from the writer’s shoe.
Moritz Karl quickly showed it to his colleague, Michael Farmer, who eyed it quizzically for a split-second before saying, “Is that . . . ?” Then, with realization, “That’s it!”
Pay dirt. A quarter-sized, roundish piece of chondrite meteorite was the Arizona team’s first proof of a meteor that broke apart Sunday over Central Texas and now lies — by the group’s estimate — in thousands of pieces across of a swath of northern McLennan County and probably southern Hill County.
Related
This quarter-sized piece of chondrite, the most common type of meteorite that falls to Earth, was the first found by the team from Arizona. (Rod Aydelotte photo)
Michael Farmer of Tucson, Ariz., holds up a piece of meteorite found Wednesday by Moritz Karl (left) as they searched near West with Robert Ward and Shauna Russell (right). (Rod Aydelotte photo)
“We have lots of dead-end hunts that don’t pay off like this,” said Robert Ward, 32, who has hunted for meteorites for more than 20 years.
The foursome arrived in Waco from Arizona having a pretty good idea that Sunday’s fireball over Central Texas, initially believed to be debris from last week’s collision of a U.S. and Russian satellite in space, would leave meteor rocks strewn across the countryside, said Farmer, 36, senior member of the group and self-described “field adventurer.”
The rumble and flash of the meteor Sunday caused countless Texans to call authorities and prompted the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office to send a helicopter to search the northeastern portion of the county, including roughly where the Arizona group made their find Wednesday.
“This is a significant event,” Farmer said. “This has worldwide interest, and you’re going to have meteor hunters from all over coming here.”
To underscore that point, two rival meteorite hunters, a Russian and an American who lives in Mexico, arrived before the Arizona group looking for the rocks and visiting with residents and property owners.
“The Russians beat us to it,” Farmer said, his comment sounding a bit like the 1960s space race.
Karl, who usually lives in his native Frankfurt, Germany, said his father called him from Germany where video of the fireball, captured by a TV cameraman videotaping the Austin Marathon, was on the news.
“They’re saying it’s satellite debris,” the 26-year-old recalled his father telling him. “ ‘No’, I told him, ‘That was a meteor.’ ”
Shauna Russell, 23, the junior member of the group, said she and her colleagues had a good idea of where to look for the “strewn field” — the area of fallen meteorites — from triangulating the TV video and eyewitnesses who saw the fireball. It also helped to have images from Doppler radar that detected the fireball in the sky around Hubbard, she said.
The chondrite found Wednesday is what meteorite hunters find 90 to 95 percent of the time, Farmer said. He estimates the strewn field to be anywhere from a mile to 2 miles wide and from 5 to 10 miles long, though it could be shorter based on the meteor’s sharp trajectory indicated in the video.
The group said the meteor, which likely hit the atmosphere at about 22,000 mph, could have been anywhere from the size of a refrigerator to a pickup before it began breaking apart. Residents within a few miles of the larger pieces falling would have heard whistling sounds like artillery shell zipping through the air, Ward said.
Farmer said he’s made a living for 13 years hunting and collecting meteorites, which can be sold to universities, planetariums and other collectors. Those sales help fund his and Ward’s meteorite chases, which have taken them to every continent except Antarctica on more than 50 hunts.
“There is an interest. These objects are worth money,” he said.
As word gets out, Farmer expects the area to overrun with professional hunters as well as amateurs, although he said he hopes people can help them find the space rocks, for which they might get paid.
“This is a big deal,” said Farmer, who added that he’s provided many of the meteorites in Texas Christian University’s collection. “It might be 20, 30 years before you get another like this in Texas.”
Thursday, February 19, 2009
By Ken Sury
Tribune-Herald staff writer
A reporter was talking with a pair of meteorite hunters Wednesday afternoon when one of them suddenly bent down and picked something up off the dirt, less than a foot from the writer’s shoe.
Moritz Karl quickly showed it to his colleague, Michael Farmer, who eyed it quizzically for a split-second before saying, “Is that . . . ?” Then, with realization, “That’s it!”
Pay dirt. A quarter-sized, roundish piece of chondrite meteorite was the Arizona team’s first proof of a meteor that broke apart Sunday over Central Texas and now lies — by the group’s estimate — in thousands of pieces across of a swath of northern McLennan County and probably southern Hill County.
Related
This quarter-sized piece of chondrite, the most common type of meteorite that falls to Earth, was the first found by the team from Arizona. (Rod Aydelotte photo)
Michael Farmer of Tucson, Ariz., holds up a piece of meteorite found Wednesday by Moritz Karl (left) as they searched near West with Robert Ward and Shauna Russell (right). (Rod Aydelotte photo)
“We have lots of dead-end hunts that don’t pay off like this,” said Robert Ward, 32, who has hunted for meteorites for more than 20 years.
The foursome arrived in Waco from Arizona having a pretty good idea that Sunday’s fireball over Central Texas, initially believed to be debris from last week’s collision of a U.S. and Russian satellite in space, would leave meteor rocks strewn across the countryside, said Farmer, 36, senior member of the group and self-described “field adventurer.”
The rumble and flash of the meteor Sunday caused countless Texans to call authorities and prompted the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office to send a helicopter to search the northeastern portion of the county, including roughly where the Arizona group made their find Wednesday.
“This is a significant event,” Farmer said. “This has worldwide interest, and you’re going to have meteor hunters from all over coming here.”
To underscore that point, two rival meteorite hunters, a Russian and an American who lives in Mexico, arrived before the Arizona group looking for the rocks and visiting with residents and property owners.
“The Russians beat us to it,” Farmer said, his comment sounding a bit like the 1960s space race.
Karl, who usually lives in his native Frankfurt, Germany, said his father called him from Germany where video of the fireball, captured by a TV cameraman videotaping the Austin Marathon, was on the news.
“They’re saying it’s satellite debris,” the 26-year-old recalled his father telling him. “ ‘No’, I told him, ‘That was a meteor.’ ”
Shauna Russell, 23, the junior member of the group, said she and her colleagues had a good idea of where to look for the “strewn field” — the area of fallen meteorites — from triangulating the TV video and eyewitnesses who saw the fireball. It also helped to have images from Doppler radar that detected the fireball in the sky around Hubbard, she said.
The chondrite found Wednesday is what meteorite hunters find 90 to 95 percent of the time, Farmer said. He estimates the strewn field to be anywhere from a mile to 2 miles wide and from 5 to 10 miles long, though it could be shorter based on the meteor’s sharp trajectory indicated in the video.
The group said the meteor, which likely hit the atmosphere at about 22,000 mph, could have been anywhere from the size of a refrigerator to a pickup before it began breaking apart. Residents within a few miles of the larger pieces falling would have heard whistling sounds like artillery shell zipping through the air, Ward said.
Farmer said he’s made a living for 13 years hunting and collecting meteorites, which can be sold to universities, planetariums and other collectors. Those sales help fund his and Ward’s meteorite chases, which have taken them to every continent except Antarctica on more than 50 hunts.
“There is an interest. These objects are worth money,” he said.
As word gets out, Farmer expects the area to overrun with professional hunters as well as amateurs, although he said he hopes people can help them find the space rocks, for which they might get paid.
“This is a big deal,” said Farmer, who added that he’s provided many of the meteorites in Texas Christian University’s collection. “It might be 20, 30 years before you get another like this in Texas.”
19 February 2009
Mike Farmer Finds Texas Meteorite 19FEB09
I just heard that two University of North Texas (in Denton) researchers recovered two meteorites near West Texas where the fireball would have landed. Hopefully we can get more details on exactly where and what types they are. Source: Pat Branch, TX
A link to the story...
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090218_mo_debris.2cb7ecf4.html
--- In http://us.mc532.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=meteorobs@yahoogroups.com,
Pat Branch wrote: "I just heard that two University of North Texas (in Denton)> researchers recovered two meteorites near West Texas where the fireball would have landed. Hopefully we can get more details on exactly where and what types they are."
Mike Farmer reports that he has also found stones from the fall!!!!
Looks like Mike Farmer (well-known Tucson hunter) found a piece too.
Here are pics and a video of them hunting.
http://www.wacotrib.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/communities/breakingnews/entries/2009/02/18/meteorite_hunters_searching_ne.html#postcomment
A link to the story...
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090218_mo_debris.2cb7ecf4.html
--- In http://us.mc532.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=meteorobs@yahoogroups.com,
Pat Branch wrote: "I just heard that two University of North Texas (in Denton)> researchers recovered two meteorites near West Texas where the fireball would have landed. Hopefully we can get more details on exactly where and what types they are."
Mike Farmer reports that he has also found stones from the fall!!!!
Looks like Mike Farmer (well-known Tucson hunter) found a piece too.
Here are pics and a video of them hunting.
http://www.wacotrib.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/communities/breakingnews/entries/2009/02/18/meteorite_hunters_searching_ne.html#postcomment
UNT astronomers say they found 2 samples of meteorites near WEST, TX 18FEB09
UNT astronomers say they found 2 samples of meteor
By REGINA L. BURNS Associated Press Writer © 2009 The Associated Press
Feb. 18, 2009, 10:52PM
houston_chron196:http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/buzz/6270243.html
DALLAS — Two samples of fresh material the "size of large pecans" from a meteor that alarmed numerous residents when it streaked across the Texas sky on Sunday have been found by two University of North Texas astronomers in a pasture east of the small town of West.
"The pieces that we found have beautiful ablation crust. And it's black like charcoal. Underneath this crust the color of the rock is concrete like gray," said Ron DiLulio, director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas in Denton.
DiLulio and Preston Starr, UNT's observatory manager, said they found the pieces Wednesday about 5 p.m. after starting their search from Fort Worth at 3 a.m. using calculations from all of the calls they had received.
DiLulio said they had just about given up looking and were driving back when a friend called and asked to meet them at a certain intersection. They said that coincided with conversations they had had earlier that day with citizens at a restaurant.
"We decided rather than try to get permission from landowners, there would be pieces in a line that would spread out a mile across. We decided to just do the county roads and we just started walking down that road and it's fairly easy to see. It jumped out at us within 15 minutes," DiLulio said.
"We came back to where our gut instinct told us," Starr said. He said the McLennan County sheriff and deputies confirmed what citizens had told them.
"The sheriff told his deputy to take us out there," DiLulio said.
The astronomers placed the samples in ZipLoc bags to keep out the air. They plan to transfer the samples to membrane cases and take them to the university for additional study.
People on Sunday reported seeing a fireball streak across the sky and DiLulio said the reason it created such a fireball was because the meteor expanded and broke into pieces.
The pair said they were not alone in the search and ran into others including "a commercial meteorite hunter and we wanted to get there so we could have it first for science," DiLulio said.
Starr said the pair had been gathering information since they initially learned of the meteor's appearance.
"We did a lot of pre-planning. We looked at the angles of what they saw in the sky and we were able to map it all out. We put a plan together and we drove around small country roads. Texas has lots of small farm to market roads," Starr said.
DiLulio said he thinks there are larger pieces still to be found.
"We feel that there are probably several hundred pieces. What happens when these things fall — they may break apart. We want to find these early and study the primitive material before our atmosphere affects them," DiLulio said
He said the pair planned on returning to the areas where they had searched.
"Everytime we find one we mark where it is on the map and we can measure how much material actually hit the surface of the earth," DiLulio said.
West is about 70 miles south of Dallas.
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On the Web:
University of North Texas, http://www.unt.edu/
By REGINA L. BURNS Associated Press Writer © 2009 The Associated Press
Feb. 18, 2009, 10:52PM
houston_chron196:http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/buzz/6270243.html
DALLAS — Two samples of fresh material the "size of large pecans" from a meteor that alarmed numerous residents when it streaked across the Texas sky on Sunday have been found by two University of North Texas astronomers in a pasture east of the small town of West.
"The pieces that we found have beautiful ablation crust. And it's black like charcoal. Underneath this crust the color of the rock is concrete like gray," said Ron DiLulio, director of the planetarium and astronomy lab program at the University of North Texas in Denton.
DiLulio and Preston Starr, UNT's observatory manager, said they found the pieces Wednesday about 5 p.m. after starting their search from Fort Worth at 3 a.m. using calculations from all of the calls they had received.
DiLulio said they had just about given up looking and were driving back when a friend called and asked to meet them at a certain intersection. They said that coincided with conversations they had had earlier that day with citizens at a restaurant.
"We decided rather than try to get permission from landowners, there would be pieces in a line that would spread out a mile across. We decided to just do the county roads and we just started walking down that road and it's fairly easy to see. It jumped out at us within 15 minutes," DiLulio said.
"We came back to where our gut instinct told us," Starr said. He said the McLennan County sheriff and deputies confirmed what citizens had told them.
"The sheriff told his deputy to take us out there," DiLulio said.
The astronomers placed the samples in ZipLoc bags to keep out the air. They plan to transfer the samples to membrane cases and take them to the university for additional study.
People on Sunday reported seeing a fireball streak across the sky and DiLulio said the reason it created such a fireball was because the meteor expanded and broke into pieces.
The pair said they were not alone in the search and ran into others including "a commercial meteorite hunter and we wanted to get there so we could have it first for science," DiLulio said.
Starr said the pair had been gathering information since they initially learned of the meteor's appearance.
"We did a lot of pre-planning. We looked at the angles of what they saw in the sky and we were able to map it all out. We put a plan together and we drove around small country roads. Texas has lots of small farm to market roads," Starr said.
DiLulio said he thinks there are larger pieces still to be found.
"We feel that there are probably several hundred pieces. What happens when these things fall — they may break apart. We want to find these early and study the primitive material before our atmosphere affects them," DiLulio said
He said the pair planned on returning to the areas where they had searched.
"Everytime we find one we mark where it is on the map and we can measure how much material actually hit the surface of the earth," DiLulio said.
West is about 70 miles south of Dallas.
____
On the Web:
University of North Texas, http://www.unt.edu/
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