My nine year old is very excited about a rock he found. We have checked several websites and it could very well be a meterorite. You can see some pictures here.
It has a density of about 3 g/cm3.
It has a dull glassy surface and is riddled with pockmarks. It is difficult to judge the thickness of the crust but it seems to be thicker than it should be to be a meteorite.
He found this item at a beach on top of a rock. It may have been placed there by someone else.
Is it possible to verify this?
looks a lot like this iron slag.
http://blog.al.com/goforth/Iron-slag-Bibb-County-Glades-Alabama.jpg
This professor has a very good site and one thing he has is a link to a question he gets asked by people. Some Meteorite Realities
Yes it does.
But iron has a much higher density than this.
Slag is the aero bar of the metal world, it is not always solid, it is frequently all bubbly inside…
I found rocks like this when I kid. I got excited about them, and what did they turn out to be? Cinders (volcanic rocks) that the town would dump on the roads in the winter for traction. They tend to be very light, reddish-brown, full of pockmarks and holes, look burnt and/or glassy, really weird rocks. As harmonious discord’s link indicates (Meteor Realities), all of the little holes and bumpy spots would be ablated during atmospheric entry.
Quite likely it’s slag, though.
If you really want to find meteorites, look in your roof gutters. Seriously. Take some of the sludge that sits in the gutters and mix it with clean water, then put a strong magnet in a plastic bag and dredge it through the solution a few times. Once the bag dries, take it off the magnet and reserve the dust that is clinging to the bag. If you look at that dust under a microscope, you will find a fair number of micrometeorites - they are the spherical particles as opposed to the more jagged terrestrial dust/roof gravel.
Maybe it was a meteorong.
Is it attracted to a magnet? It won’t give you a definite yes or no answer, but it could help narrow down the possibilities.