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PauldoMemberAnyone see or hear this last night?
Meteorite hunters rush to Wisconsin
Fireball lights up the Midwest skyFollowing a fireball that lit up the night sky and a sonic boom that rattled houses over a large swath of the Midwest on Wednesday night, another phenomenon is arriving in southwestern Wisconsin: meteorite hunters.
Paul Sipiera, adjunct curator of the Field Museum's Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies, plans to lead a team of four investigators to Grant County on Friday, and other meteorite hunters are expected to descend on the area too.
“What we will try to do is coordinate eyewitnesses who saw the fireball and pinpoint its trajectory, then get word out to farmers to get them to be on the lookout for strange rocks,” said Sipiera, whose Planetary Studies Foundation, based in Galena, Ill., buys meteorites for the Field Museum collection.
By Thursday night, no discovery of meteor fragments had been reported, but if they are found, far more meteorite hunters will likely pour into the area, Sipiera said. Luckily, he said, it is plowing time, and if larger meteorites buried themselves as they fell into fields, they will be exposed with plowing.
Sipiera's wife, Diane, screening calls to the foundation on Thursday from potential hunters, said she heard from people as far away as England.
“I would guess there are meteorite hunters and dealers boarding airplanes all over the country this morning, heading for Wisconsin,” said Mark Hammergren, an Adler Planetarium astronomer who studies asteroids, the primitive small planetoids from which most meteors originate.
A meteorite is a surviving fragment of a disintegrating, fiery meteor as it plunges from outer space through the Earth's atmosphere. Because they are primitive pieces of the early days of the 4.5-million-year-old solar system, they are prized by scientists and collectors. Hundreds of meteorite fragments landing in south suburban Park Forest in 2003 were worth an estimated $500,000.
Wednesday's fireball dramatically burst across the sky over parts of Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin shortly after 10 p.m.
In northwest suburban Woodstock, the flash of light out Christine McMorris' kitchen window put to shame all the shooting stars she had seen in the West. On a farm outside downstate Dixon, Becky Hoffman thought it was a transformer blowing up. In Iowa, state Trooper Tim Beckman at first thought it was lightning, except then it roared across the sky.
“It has the appearance that is completely consistent with being a meteor,” said Hammergren, though it will take finding fragments of it on the ground to prove it.
Luckily, the suspected meteor's path was captured by Doppler radar at weather stations in the Quad Cities and La Crosse, Wis. Hammergren and others analyzing the evidence said it deposited fragments on the ground. The consensus is that fragments probably landed somewhere near Livingston, Wis., a village of about 600 people in eastern Grant County.
Hunting for meteorites became more widely known from a reality television series begun last year on the Science Channel, “Meteorite Men.” One of its two stars, Arkansas meteorite hunter Steve Arnold, said he was intrigued by the Wisconsin fireball, though he and his partner on the show, Geoff Notkin, are scheduled to be at a New York astronomy and telescope convention this weekend.
“When things like this happen,” Arnold said, “it is kind of like the alarm going off in the volunteer fire department. If you can pull your boots on and go, you go, but if not, you wait to hear what happens. I have friends going there, and if they find something, I will maybe have to change my plans and go too.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-meteor-sighting-20100415,0,3394063.story
SozeKeymasterWe were having a BBQ and saw it.. It was pretty huge. Definitely the biggest meteor i've ever seen.
It was this bright green light that came down and looked like a jet or something. It then broke apart into a bunch of yellow pieces and faded out.
zensphereMembervideo here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-TYo1LgHr4PauldoMemberwow, nice!
_eNdo_GuestWow! The video shows it a lot more dramatic and bright than what I had imagined. Whoa
PookztAMemberholy crap! thanks for posting this! hope you don't mind that I posted it on facebook, just want to spread this crazy news. Very cool indeed, thanks again for posting
AscensionKeymasterThe videos of this are really cool. As of now they think fragments landed in Livingston, WI (which is about half an hour from dubuque).
emilybobemilyGuestwwoooah!!
you guys get all of the action!
Nameless OneParticipant_eNdo_GuestMeteorite found!
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/04/16/wisconsin-meteor-update-meteorite-found/Nice! That's gotta be thrilling to own a piece of meteorite. Knowing that is has drifted in space for who knows how long and for how far. Oh the places its been! Fascinating.
zensphereMemberWe're drifting in space, too!
🙂PookztAMemberMeteorite found!
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/04/16/wisconsin-meteor-update-meteorite-found/nice! thanks for posting the update
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