Meteorite or Meteorwrong?

meteorites.wustl.edu

24 points·Tomte··9 comments

Excellent flow chart. It reminds me of the fun we had dragging a magnet around the desert outside of Las Vegas in search of meteorites and fragments. The coolest thing we found was probably (we didn't get a positive ID) part of a single action revolver's receiver.

This is kind of confusing. There are two boxes about a dark, thin crust, and one of the boxes can't lead to "SEND ME A PHOTO", but still has questions coming off of it.

Also "Did someone see it fall?" unconditionally leads to "Not a meteorite."

I think this flowchart is addressing some commonly asked questions as well as providing a guide. There's more information in the links below; basically, even if you think you saw it fall from the sky, you actually didn't, and that isn't a reason to discount the flowchart and think you saw a meteorite.

http://www.meteoritemarket.com/metid2.htm

Even at terminal velocity it is unlikely that one would "see" it fall. One moment it's not there, the next blink of an eye and it's already on/into the ground.

So should it be worded "Did you see it hit the ground?"

Edit - or "Were you present when it hit the ground?" I don't know it just seems like splitting hairs.

Couldn't it still leave a path of illuminated vaporized gas for hundreds of kilometers?

Of course the likelihood of having a meteorite fall near enough that you would try searching for it but also being able to actually find the meteorite is extremely small.

The credits says "...we suspect that most experienced meteorite hunters would have little criticism with the logic" [my emphasis]. I guess this feature of the chart is a commentary on the general credibility of eyewitness claims.

Both "dark thin crust" boxes have outgoing paths that lead to "SEND ME A PHOTO".

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