[HN Gopher] Meteorite hunters who rush in when space rocks crash...
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Meteorite hunters who rush in when space rocks crash to earth
Author : Thevet
Score : 59 points
Date : 2022-12-29 03:15 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| voisin wrote:
| 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.
| _gmax0 wrote:
| Fascinating lifestyles, they're just like Ed and his father from
| Cowboy Bebop!
| didgetmaster wrote:
| 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?
| dahfizz wrote:
| > 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.
| UI_at_80x24 wrote:
| That's smart, using Murphys law to find the truth!
| almog wrote:
| I see what you did there! :)
| codingdave wrote:
| Some tips from USGS:
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/i-think-i-found-meteorite-how-can-...
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Let's make a movie, call it "Meteor" and we can have Jodi Foster
| star.
| GalenErso wrote:
| > 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.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Cash rules everything around me.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| 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.
| kennend3 wrote:
| 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?
| [deleted]
| rurp wrote:
| 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.
| jostmey wrote:
| 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
| dmix wrote:
| 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?
| enkid wrote:
| 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.
| MeteorMarc wrote:
| They want them clean, not touched by humans, in particular in
| case of carbonaceous meteorites.
| kennend3 wrote:
| 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...
| dmix wrote:
| 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?
| kennend3 wrote:
| 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??
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