What should you do if you find a chunk of meteorite from the meteor that exploded Tuesday over southeastern Michigan?
Contrary to popular science fiction novels and movies, any materials believed to be meteorites aren’t going to be hot or dangerously radioactive when they land on the surface of the earth, said Astronomer Norbert Vance, director of Eastern Michigan University’s Sherzer Observatory.
“It actually feels cold because it’s been sitting all of its existence in the cold of space,” Vance said. “The entry into the atmosphere is brief – violent, but brief. It’s not going to be radioactive or dangerous in that respect.”
If someone finds chunks of a meteorite, Bergin said the material can be analyzed for mineral content to determine where it might have come from. Both Bergin and Vance recommend bringing any potential findings to a local research institution nearby for further study.
Meteorites come in “different flavors,” University of Michigan Department of Astronomy Chair Edwin Bergin said. The most common ones are often black or gray-colored rock, composed of many of the same elements that can be found on earth in everyday rocks.
A meteorite, however, might have other minerals in it that are not consistent with material from the earth’s surface.
“There are some rare elements like gold and radium that are present from rocks that fall from space,” Bergin said. “You’re not going to go out and get rich by finding one of these things, though.”
But experts say the odds of spotting any of the debris or materials from the bolide – or large space rock that made it into the earth’s lower atmosphere – aren’t good.
University of Michigan Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering Michael Liemohn said any remnants from a meteorite would be small and difficult to spot.
“My guess is it would be smaller than your fist,” Liemohn said. “That would be all that’s left coming to earth. There could be a debris field, though, somewhere here in Southeast Michigan of fragments. It would look like strange, super-heated and then cooled rock or lava rock.”
A meteorite discovered in 1984 by geologists riding snowmobiles through Antarctica, for example, was believed by researchers from NASA to be from Mars.
While it is unlikely to come upon a meteorite with terrain like Michigan’s, Bergin said the current climate could actually help in that respect.