Seen on Reddit
So a hunter/collector/dealer that traveled to Ohio has got back home and done the first Facebook sale of material, 10 pieces ranging from 1.3 grams for $975 to 0.12 grams for $90, so $750 a gram. If I had seen it in time and currently had a collecting budget I’d probably have spring for the $90 one. (They sold quick.)
ETA and someone else just sold a 3.2 gram piece for $2100.
Whenever I hear about people finding meteorites, this scene of an ecstatic researcher in Antarctica from Werner Herzog’s Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds comes to mind.
So how can I, as a non-astronomer, geologist, metallurgist or anything else, be sure that a 0.12 piece of something is from outer space, and not simple rubble? Particularly when it shows up on Facebook Marketplace? Do they even have a category for extraterrestrial objects?
It wasn’t on Facebook Marketplace, it was on the page of a years-known meteorite collector-dealer with a rock-solid (sorry) reputation.
It is a public page, you can look at it yourself
A while back (I think when snopes still had a forum) I read a fascinating article about a man who was some combination of a fraud, a sovereign citizen, and severely mentally ill. I believe this is the article:
Unfortunately, to properly you read it, you need a subscription to The Verge. That said, this section is relevant:
As a member of the International Meteorite Collectors Association, Reed adhered to a strict code of ethics, vowing to uphold a high bar of professionalism in the identification and verification of meteorites. “The membership maintains this high standard by monitoring each other’s activities for accuracy,” the code states. “One of the hardest things is to get people to believe the meteorites you’re selling are real,” Reed says. Those who break the code need to be reprimanded.
Reed and his colleagues had gotten Curry kicked off of eBay multiple times for his faux meteorites, and, each time, Curry lashed out with increasing vitriol. His purported meteorites, or “Curry-ites,” were now popping up in shops in Montrose, Telluride, Glenwood Springs, and Grand Junction. The last straw for Reed came during the Denver gem show in the form of an email titled “High Noon Challenge” that Curry blasted to the meteorite community:
Hi Boys & Girls; You’ve all had a wonderful time, over the past couple of years, in trying to denounce my research, attacking my integrity, defaming my character, and, most importantly, making absolute fools of yourselves! I’ve allowed this, and I’ve exhibited a great deal of tolerance for your highly unprofessional, and grossly unethical behavior, but, I will not tolerate your abuse of my family, friends, and business colleagues. YOU HAVE CROSSED THE LINE FOR THE LAST TIME!!
Curry proposed that Reed meet him at the Montrose Library after the Denver gem show for a “duel.” Reed was one of the country’s only dealers at the time who owned an X-ray fluorescence analyzer (XRF), a $40,000 device that looks like a raygun and can identify the chemical elements in a geologic sample within seconds.
Curry, by the way, is the fraud/sovcit/mentally ill man. So I take that to mean there is no simple way to detect a genuine meteorite that doesn’t require expensive equipment. But allegedly, at least a decade or so ago, there was a self-styled group of reputable collectors that might actually be/have been reputable (the International Meteorite Collectors Association).
Although, if it turns out it’s graphite…
When Reed scratched the edge of the rock on a piece of white paper, it left a line like a pencil. Pencil lead, or graphite, only forms in an oxygen-free environment — that is, in space.
Aren’t tektites formed as ejecta? Did this asteroid hit the ground?
Yes. But this looks similar to one because both are subject to similar atmospheric conditions.
Sometimes it is difficult to determine if something is a meteorite or not without expensive equipment. But very often someone experienced with them can tell at a glance that something definitely is or definitely isn’t. I’m not familiar with this particular guy but there are quite number of people very sure that they have found a meteorite that is obviously not at a glance. Every time someone with any expertise in the area tells them that it isn’t a meteorite, that person is added to the ever-growing list of people conspiring to screw them out of fame and fortune, and spend years obsessing over their random rock. Some have only a single rock but others are convinced that every single rock they trip over in their yard is a meteorite and, no matter how often they are told they have nothing, they continue to try to promote and sell them. For decades. Just today I saw in the comments section of a Facebook post about the Ohio fall a nutbag who thinks he has hundreds of lunar meteorites spamming his photos. He has been doing it for more than 20 years. He’s in Sweden, but there is a similar guy in the US who finds fake meteorites of all classifications that is still active after more than 20 years. I could name them both, but I don’t want to risk summoning them because their kind of crazy isn’t the entertaining type.
The IMCA is still very much a thing. Earlier in this thread I posted a photo of Roberto Vargas’s first Ohio meteorite (he’s up to a dozen now). There is another photo of it shown in many news articles that show that piece setting beside his 1 cm scale cube with his IMCA number on it.
That link doesn’t work for me, but I did see her interviewed on my local news just now. They’ll probably pay her more for the meteorite than it will cost to fix her house.
As for the “Mars rocks” that were found in Antarctica, I’ve always been skeptical about that. How could they tell? Do they have some Martian DNA we don’t know about, or what? Extraterrestrial origin, that I’m OK with, but Earth is an awfully small target from a Martian perspective, and what about things like gravity and escape velocity?
We have something that is figuratively Martian DNA (or Martian fingerprints). It was provided by the Viking Martian lander:
Then in 1983, various trapped gases were reported in impact-formed glass of the EET79001 shergottite, gases which closely resembled those in the Martian atmosphere as analyzed by Viking.
(Before the Viking data we knew three types of meteories named shergottites, nakhlites and chassignites were related to each other but didn’t have the smoking gun fingerprint DNA to confirm Mars.)
There are dozens of classes of meteorites that can be identified by atom and isotope ratios to be from dozens of asteroid parent bodies that have long since been pulverized. The SNCs are probably from Mars, the HEDs like the Ohio fall are probably from Vesta. There have been some unusual meteorites that may be from Mercury but we have no good sample of Mercury to confirm it.
Mars has a much smaller gravitational field, only 38% of Earth’s surface gravity. That combined with a very thin atmosphere (less than 1% of Earth’s) makes it easy for collisions with large rocks to eject some rocks at Mars’ escape velocity.
But once ejected, the rocks don’t go straight to Earth. Instead, they all go into Solar orbit. Since those orbits will intially intersect Mars’ orbit, many of them, probably a majority, will crash back into Mars. But some will avoid that and eventually be perturbed (by distant gravitational effects of various planets) into an orbit that intersects Earth’s or even other planets’. This will usually take millions of years. So there’s a handful of Martian rocks that have crashed into Earth. There probably are a few on other celestial bodies: the Moon, Venus, Mercury, and various asteroids.
ETA: Let me amend that a bit. Since there’s no atmosphere on the Moon, Mercury or asteroids, any rocks that hit them are probably no longer a rock, but rather pulverized by the collision. Probably not identifiable anymore.
Aaaaaand, a bright meteor a couple of hours ago visible in Sacramento CA and Carson City NV
If not satellite debris, maybe more rocks on the ground…
As usual, XKCD has it covered.
He also provides this more useful flowchart.
That looks like a Roman Dodecahedron making kit to me…
On a site by a (now retired) scientist who used to work with Apollo material. You can see his frustration at the endless stream of morons and jerks in his “I will probably not respond to your message if…” list.
Excerpts:
I have answered your questions several times before yet you continue to send me photos of rocks that are clearly not meteorites. You are not learning. I do not want to look at photos of every rock you find.
…
You ask me to get back to you “ASAP” or “right away.” I do not work for you. I do this as a volunteer service and I do not get paid or charge a fee. I just give free information, advice, and opinions.
…
The object in the photo is clearly not a meteorite to anyone who has studied the photos and information that I provide here.
…
You sent photos of several or many rocks. What? You think that you have found more than one meteorite? I do not have time to look through your whole rock collection.
…
You say something like “This is a meteorite unlike any one ever found before!” or “Maybe it’s from Pluto!” Get real.
…
You say that you rock contains gold, diamonds, lonsdaleite, or carbonados. All of these features are rare in meteorites and are microscopic in size. You cannot see them even with a magnifying glass. Experienced meteorite finders do not use these characteristics to identify meteorites in hand.
…
You say that you can “see” nickel in the rock. No, you cannot see nickel in a meteorite. You might be able to see metal, but you cannot determine just by looking whether the metal contains nickel. Neither can a metal detector.
…
You tell me, “I know it is a meteorite.” If you know it is a meteorite, then why are you bothering me? I cannot help you.
…
You say that your rock is a meteorite because Google Lens identified it as a meteorite, Google Image or some some meteorite identifier app on your phone thinks it is a meteorite, or some no-nothing person is selling a rock on the internet that “looks just like it.”
…
I have given you my opinion before and you argue with me or insult me. If you do not like my free opinion, get a second opinion. I am really not interested in convincing you that your rock is not a meteorite. I just give free information, advice, and opinions. You can believe whatever you want.
There are meteorite identification groups on Facebook. 99.95 percent of the things posted are not meteorites (almost all of that 0.05 percent that are real are meteorites that they bought or inherited from someone who bought it). The majority of objects posted don’t have any visible characteristics of a meteorite, it is just people who find a random rock that they don’t recognize and immediately jump to that conclusion. (Other groups have similar problems. Random roundish rocks are dinosaur eggs. Random triangular-ish rocks are megalodon teeth or arrowheads).
Also, the number of Dunning-Kruger nitwits commenting on the Ohio meteorite Facebook is staggering. People who have never seen a meteorite in their lives insisting that real pieces are not. People insisting that they would leave craters. People insisting that it was an Iranian missile and the “meteorite” story is a government cover-up. People believing it it is real but thinking the government would seize it. People with no clue how meteorites are tested or their monetary value telling people how to get them tested and their monetary value. People who believe it is a sign of the End Times. People insisting that space does not exist and Earth is surrounded by a firmament that nothing can get in or out of. And hundreds and hundreds of people that think they are being clever by making Joe Dirt references.