If you’re one of the treasure hunters who took to Michigan’s outdoors Wednesday, Jan. 17, in hopes of finding pieces of meteorite, Darryl Pitt has an offer for you: The first person to recover a chunk of the space rock weighing at least 2.2 pounds – or 1 kilogram – can receive a $20,000 reward.
The New York City resident, curator of the Macovich Collection of Meteorites and meteorite consultant to the auction house Christie’s, described the potential meteorite waiting to be uncovered as a “winning extraterrestrial lottery ticket.” He added that the time is now for prospective treasure hunters to turn their meteorite seeking into a tidy profit, a couple of days removed from a meteoroid that was spotted exploding above southeast Michigan on Tuesday, Jan. 16.
“It’s better to go out there and find them sooner, because the longer they’re on the ground, the more they tend to blend in with Earth rocks,” said Pitt, one of the largest private collectors of meteorites in the world. “I really want this to be found and the only way that’s going to happen is if there are more boots on the ground.”
Pitt reached out to those in communities where the meteor was spotted for a couple of reasons. First, he is a Michigan native – he grew up in Southfield and attended the University of Michigan.
Additionally, he remarked that the uniqueness of bystanders spotting the meteor event – which registered a 2.0 on the Richter scale – has heightened awareness of the public, making central lower Michigan a temporary hotbed for meteorite hunters.
Coincidentally, Pitt said, Christie’s is hosting a meteorite auction in two weeks. He believes NASA’s identifying the search area could give residents a better chance of finding meteorite material, although the likelihood is usually fairly small.
NASA indicated Wednesday that meteorites could be located in an area west of Hamburg Township in Livingston County. William Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama, believes meteorites may have landed in a 2.5-mile area west of the township.
The meteor was spotted by NASA shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, Cooke said. Doppler radar signals from the area, NASA believes, are reflections off “meteoric dust from the fireball falling to the ground.”
“The seismic signatures recorded by several seismometers in the regions and the noises heard by folk on the ground are indicative of an object penetrating to very low altitudes, which is characteristic of meteorite producers,” Cooke said Wednesday.
Cooke estimated that the meteor broke up about 20 miles above the Earth’s surface, “give or take 5 miles,” although its precise trajectory is not yet available.
Pitt said it isn’t very common for him to offer a reward for meteorites because there aren’t many known meteor events where the public is aware of its specific trajectory and location.
“Earth is bombarded regularly by materials, but two-thirds of those materials end up in the ocean, and a very large percentage lands in uninhabited areas and places where you can’t find it,” Pitt said.
“I was especially motivated (to offer a reward) because I was raised in the area,” added Pitt, who also is the owner of the Peekskill Meteorite Car, which is on display at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. The car was struck by a meteorite outside of New York City.
What the potential meteorites are made of varies, Pitt said, but they contain answers that date back billions of years.
“We know that there are many meteorites that contain amino acids or building blocks of proteins of life that have never been seen before on Earth. They’re very important, fascinating objects.”
Pitt and Cooke noted that anyone looking to search for meteorites on private property must always ask the permission of the property owner before searching their land.
Pitt can be reached via email or at 917-213-8265.
