After Michigan's meteor show Tuesday night, the hunt was on to find fragments.
Meteorite hunters Larry Atkins and Robert Ward flew here from Arizona in hopes of finding a piece, and today they were successful. They located several meteorites on a frozen lake near Hamburg, Michigan.
Mike Hankey with the American Meteor Society joined Stateside today to explain what they found, and what to look for if you’re searching for meteorites in that area.
“They’re looking for something that looks black like charcoal,” he said.
The meteorites might be buried in the snow, he said but it depends on the wind.
“It might just stick out,” he said. “So like, if a meteorite was on top of the snow, you could see it from 100 feet away.”
Hankey cautioned anyone hunting meteorites to be careful – especially if they're looking on frozen lakes or in freezing temperatures.
He also warned against trespassing. He said the general rule is that whoever owns the land that a meteorite fell on also owns the meteorite.
“And sometimes people can get crazy with meteorite hunts,” he said, “so most important thing is to not break any laws and to be careful.”
The American Meteor Society predicts all meteorites fell in an area that's about ten to 20 miles long and about two miles wide, Hankey said.
See the map above.
“You know, if something fell on my land,” he said, “I would want to get it myself, so [landowners] should look in their yards and fields... in Hamburg and Lakeland, Michigan.”
He said there are probably thousands of meteorites out there still.
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