Let the Stars Fall Into Your Pocket

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All three classes of meteors (except for some rare stonier that contain no nickel-iron) are generally attracted by a magnet. Most of the time, too, a stony will be about 1-1/2 times—and an iron approximately 3 times—heavier than ordinary earth rocks of the same size.

You can inspect the inside of a suspected meteorite by grinding away a small corner (don't hammer or try to break the rock because, if it is a meteor, that will lessen its value). The interior of a stony usually contains irregular specks of metal. The inside of an iron looks like a bright piece of steel. And the internal structure of a stony-iron is almost always a network of nickel-iron with meshes of olivine crystals (a yellowish or greenish mineral) or grains of nickel-iron in a stony matrix.

And leave "no stone unturned" in your search! Meteorites vary in size from a fraction of an inch across (weighing less than an ounce) to several feet in diameter (with a weight of over 100,000 pounds).

LOOK TO THE SKIES,
. . . EARTH MAN!

Most "falling stars" are witnessed in the afternoon. Some scientists state that this results from a combination of the rotation of the planet upon its axis plus the earth's revolution around the sun. Others claim that it's simply because more people are outdoors at that time of day. Most falls occur during the Northern Hemisphere's late spring and summer months.

If you see a meteor fall nearby, you can sometimes get an approximate idea of how far away it has landed by counting the seconds from the time it vanishes behind trees, etc., to the time you hear it explode or impact on the ground. Each second represents about 1,000 feet.

To further track down a "falling star" that you or someone else has sighted, contact people who reside in the direction that the meteor was seen to go. Question each witness you find. Did he or she hear any unusual sound either during and/or after sighting the meteorite? Where was it in relation to local landmarks when it disappeared? How far away did it appear to be? How fast was it moving? Use every scrap of information you can get to zero in on the spot where the meteoroid impacted .

. . .OR JUST LOOK
ON THE GROUND!

Then again, nothing says that you have to wait until you or someone you know actually sees a falling meteor before you can go out looking for one. Meteorites have been hitting the earth continually for billions of years and a thorough search of almost any large area of land will probably turn up one or more of the "outer space" rocks.

Finding a meteoroid "cold" is, perhaps, not as difficult as you may have supposed either. Although over 90 percent of the meteors that land on earth are stony (and tend to blend in with native rocks), most that you'll spot will be iron. And those irons will "jump out at you" because their nickel-iron content—which resists weathering—is usually conspicuously different from ordinary rocks.

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