Meteorite hunters who rush in when space rocks crash to earth | Hacker News Reader

Meteorite hunters who rush in when space rocks crash to earth

atlasobscura.com

62 pointsThevet24 comments

A good sized meteor lit up the night sky last summer and landed in our small town, going through the roof of a lady’s trailer. I was evidently in the debris path because a number of people came knocking at the door in the week that followed asking if they could nose around looking for fragments.

I have a rock that I inherited from my grandmother who collected strange rocks. The story goes that a friend or relative gave it to her after they discovered a hole in their barn roof and found this rock embedded in the ground inside. This was sometime in the 1920s or 1930s. She always called it her 'meteorite'.

It is about the size of a smashed tennis ball. It is heavy, completely black and has a strange pattern of lines and dots covering it. I am a bit skeptical that it is a real meteorite. A magnet won't stick to it and the pattern doesn't seem like something that a rock falling through the atmosphere would develop naturally. It is certainly a strange rock and I have never seen anything else like it.

Anyone know a good way to determine if it is legit?

> Anyone know a good way to determine if it is legit?

Post a picture of it to some meteorite subreddit bringing about a meteorite you found. People will happily correct you if it isn't real.

That's smart, using Murphys law to find the truth!

I see what you did there! :)

https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/items/self-test-check-...

Some tips from USGS:

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/i-think-i-found-meteorite-how-can-...

Fascinating lifestyles, they're just like Ed and his father from Cowboy Bebop!

Oops, her*.

Let's make a movie, call it "Meteor" and we can have Jodi Foster star.

> If there really are meteorites on the ground, hundreds of thousands of dollars could be on the line. But these hunters will need to act fast if they want a piece of it—literally

Sigh. Money rules everything, doesn't it?

The government could pass a law making all meteors falling in the country government property. The practical effect would be to prevent these auctions from happening as well as a prosecution mechanism for when someone is caught trying to sell. The black market would still exist, but finding buyers willing to pay as much as auction events would be more difficult.

Because meteor rocks are a scarce resource, they should ideally belong to scientific organizations, not in people's private collections.

Do scientists even want these rocks?

Would scientists even benefit from disincentivizing the thousands of people hunting them down vs having to occasionally pay for the good ones that have scientific value?

Scientists do want meteorites. They tell a lot about the evolution of the solar system and even the planets. Meteorites formed in specific periods as the solar system developed, which allows geologists to compare there formation with how we expect the Earth to have formed. Additionally, there are some very rare meteorites which were cast into space from a neighboring planet (or moon) due to their own collision with a meteor and then come down on Earth, telling us even more about these celestial bodies. It's the only way we can study rocks from Mars using a full laboratory at this point.

Scientists absolutely want them and often reach out to the public for help.

Case in point, this took place here in Ontario not long ago.

https://www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/fi...

Well, yeah, they want specific meteorites for research. I meant in general do they care about collecting the vast majority of them that fall on the earth?

Isnt this a catch-22 situation?

what makes a "specific meteorite" important for research if they don't get a chance to look at it?

The issue, at least for Canada is the laws are clear:

"Canadian law on the matter is clear and simple: Any meteorite found in Canada belongs to the owner of the property it was found on. "

So places like the ROM need to ASK that you let them examine what you find.

I would assume that if you find something you can turn it over to the ROM to examine and have it returned given it is YOUR property??

That dilemma seems very specific to Canadian law (or any situation where such a law exists).

The thing I asked was whether it makes sense to remove the concept of property and markets entirely from meteorites.

Sayings yes it's property but adding a minor exception wouldn't eliminate the incentives entirely... but it could severely reduce the incentives to find them and therefore the net gain scientists (and the public) get from making it open to the private hunters.

Those details matter a lot in that context, do they have to turn it over indefinitely for 'research'? Do researchers have to compensate the finder if they take it for an extended period of time? etc.

That's basically a whole different conversation that's predicated on the core question I proposed but it's a different question.

They want them clean, not touched by humans, in particular in case of carbonaceous meteorites.

On the flip side, money is a great motivator. Being able to collect and sell metorites probably drives a lot more finds and interest overall. I agree that it's nice to donate them to science, but many of the meteorites in private collections would have never been discovered in a world where the government owns them all, so the current system doesn't seem so bad to me.

On the flip side, most of these meteorites would go I found if there wasn’t motivation to collect them. It might not be so bad

Cash rules everything around me.

There could never be a better example of "finders keepers" than meteorites. Nobody can lay any kind of legitimate claim to these rocks - that have literally entered from the void of space - except for the people who find them. The real reason somebody would be upset about this is jealousy.

This depends on the laws of your country.

In Canada, they belong to the owner of the property they land on.

So if it lands in your yard you own it, if it lands on "Crown land" the government owns it.

Looks like things are a bit different in the US where the "Bureau of Land Management" allows private citizens to claim up to 10 lbs of material for free, and has a fee structure for people who collect for profit?

Your point of "jealousy" is unclear. why would a scientist who wants to study them be jealous?

Want to study one? Good. Go find it. Let people who have them alone.

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