Another meteoroid detected before atmospheric entry, and then observed. Spectacular.



Video of the entry:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1624967147708420103

Actual entry time appears to have been 02:59:14 UT, so 49 seconds off.  I haven't seen how the predicted entry point matches video footage, but it seems to match fairly well, within a few 10's of km.

More information about this meteor here: https://www.strewnify.com/y20230213_02z_31u/

Looks like this dropped meteorites on the ground.  The 14 km/s entry speed and 21 km terminal altitude make it very promising.

And one 100g fragment recovered: https://www.vigie-ciel.org/2023/02/15/une-meteorite-normande-issue-de-2023-cx1-retrouvee/

Awesome. That was a quick recovery! Looks like an ordinary chondrite at a glance (though can't rule out a more exotic stone). Looking forward to seeing how this gets classified. Normally chondrites are cheaply available on the market, but this being a documented and predicted fall will surely make fragments highly valuable and sought after.

It's interesting to think of trends for the future, if these sorts of detections of meter-ish sized asteroid impacts with few hours lead time become more common and facilitate hunters and researchers, or even for public safety if we can give out a warning before something big enough to do localized damage comes in.

I wonder if we can make predictions for incoming space garbage too, we've had a few incidents of that also.

I've always wanted to collect meteorite fragments but didn't know what kind of equipment I'd need to identify it in the field.

A magnet?

A magnet is really not a good tool for finding meteorites. (Or at least it should not be your main tool, but simply one diagnostic among several, the most important being your eyes and knowledge of what different types of meteorites look like.) A magnet will of course stick to iron meteorites, and any stoney-irons or chondrites that have a fair amount of iron in them. But there are also many terrestrial things that stick to magnets, and there are many meteorites (especially more interesting and valuable types like lunar, Martian, and carbonaceous chondrites) that are not attracted to a magnet!

A less important point for collectors, but very important for researchers, is that meteorites often have remnant magnetism preserved in their minerals, revealing information about the evolution of their host bodies or even the solar nebula from which they formed. This information is utterly destroyed if you stick a magnet to them.

The best way to find meteorites is to look in the right places: deserts, where there is not a lot of variety of loose rocks, and any meteorites that have fallen will be easy to spot and have survived for a long time (thousands of years or more). Fresh meteorites are easy to identify by a dark fusion crust, which will be extremely thin (usually much less than a millimeter!). However, fusion crust is the first thing to disappear as a meteorite gets weathered by exposure on the Earth. Otherwise, look for stones that seem out of place and different from the others. The vast majority of weird stones you come across though will not be meteorites. Meteorites are incredibly rare. 

Barring the extreme fortune of finding them on your own in the wild, the best way to have a meteorite is to purchase them online. Some types are both beautiful and remarkably affordable. I live in western Washington which is probably one of the worst possible places to try to search for meteorites, but I've had great success building a collection thanks to various meteorite dealers and Ebay.

I envision a new TV series-- Wat the Meteorite Hunter!  But seriously, this is a great reason why so many meteorites have been found in Antarctica, it is after all a desert.  The famous meteorite that came from Mars was found there as well as some that came from the Moon.  Back in the 90s we used to call these tektites, but that term is no longer used in that manner.

In this case the event was recorded by meteor cameras which would have recorded this regardless of the prediction, but since it was predicted, people were prepared and could immediately look at the data and quickly estimate the search area based on the camera recordings.  However, if an impact is predicted, I think what would be valuable besides regular meteor cameras, are audio recordings around the predicted impact area.  Given several hours notice, this should be possible to organise in a fairly densely populated area like this.

Meteorite recovery is very difficult, even if you have high quality video from multiple sites.  Success greatly depends on what kind of search terrain we're dealing with.  Winter farmland is pretty good terrain.  Another important factor is the number of meteorites.  Sometimes an event will only produce one meteorite, sometimes it could produce thousands.  If you have a thousand meteorites (a rare event, though), chances are good that something will be found even if the terrain is difficult.  And if one meteorite is found after a such event, more meteorites will probably be found nearby.

The best tool for hunting is trained eyes and many people.  A magnet wont help you find it, but can be handy for identifying candidates.  A regular metal detector will usually not detect typical rocky meteorites, so it has limited use.

16 meteorites found so far after a recent fall in Germany:  https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/schleswig-holstein/Meteoriteneinschlag-in-Elmshorn-Bisher-13-Teile-gefunden,meteorit146.html

16 meteorites found so far after a recent fall in Germany:  https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/schleswig-holstein/Meteoriteneinschlag-in-Elmshorn-Bisher-13-Teile-gefunden,meteorit146.html

Did you hear about the meteorite that fell into someone's living room in New Jersey? It is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old and from an asteroid! It happened during the Eta Aquarid meteor shower.  It was 4 inches by 6 inches and bounced off the floor and hit the ceiling and left a dent in both places lol.  The woman who found it said it was still hot to the touch when she found it and it was composed of iron.

Yes.  Virtually all meteorites are that old and from an asteroid.  It was a rocky meteor which has some iron, but still a meteorite low in iron.  It was likely not hot, but rather just warm.  Meteorites are cold and only the crust gets hot enough to evaporate during the atmospheric entry, but this lasts only a few seconds, so the interior stays cold, and the crust cools down as the meteorite falls through the lower atmosphere before hitting the ground typically 1 - 2 minutes after the atmospheric entry.  So newly fallen meteorites tend to have a warm surface, but not hot.  They do not ignite fires due to their heat.

I've seen people link it to the Eta Aquarid shower, but these are clueless.  There is zero probability that the meteorite has anything to do with this shower for the simple reason that the Eta Aquirids hit Earth at approximately 66 km/s and at that speed no meteorite will ever make it through the atmosphere.

Yes.  Virtually all meteorites are that old and from an asteroid.  It was a rocky meteor which has some iron, but still a meteorite low in iron.  It was likely not hot, but rather just warm.  Meteorites are cold and only the crust gets hot enough to evaporate during the atmospheric entry, but this lasts only a few seconds, so the interior stays cold, and the crust cools down as the meteorite falls through the lower atmosphere before hitting the ground typically 1 - 2 minutes after the atmospheric entry.  So newly fallen meteorites tend to have a warm surface, but not hot.  They do not ignite fires due to their heat.

I've seen people link it to the Eta Aquarid shower, but these are clueless.  There is zero probability that the meteorite has anything to do with this shower for the simple reason that the Eta Aquirids hit Earth at approximately 66 km/s and at that speed no meteorite will ever make it through the atmosphere.

Yes that is what was reported on the news, likely it was just a coincidence that it happened around the time of that meteor shower then?

The amazing thing is that it actually landed inside a person's house, the odds of that happening must be incredibly low.

Originally I thought maybe space junk, but this is the real deal.

Mid how long does it take for an object of this type to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface and how large do you think it might have been before it entered the earth's atmosphere?

The amazing thing is that it actually landed inside a person's house, the odds of that happening must be incredibly low.

Quite low, but more than once. Many meteorites have been documented falling onto structures, cars, and even a mailbox. Meteorites that do this are sometimes called hammerstones. I haven't found a well cited number for how many of these are known, but it's something around a hundred.

One meteorite has even struck a person, Ann Hodges, while she was laying on her couch, after it crashed through her roof and bounced off her radio. It gave her one heck of a bruise. Lucky that it did not hit her directly and lost most of its energy first.