[meteorite-list] Couple Thinks Meteorite Landed Near Home in Illinois

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2007 07:47:38 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200702081547.HAA16193_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17825098&BRD=1719&PAG=461&dept_id=25271&rfi=6

Couple thinks meteorite landed near home
By NICK LUCCHESI
The Telegraph (Illinois)
February 8, 2007

MEADOWBROOK - An unexpected meteor shot across Midwestern skylines
Sunday night, and a retired couple thinks part of it landed here,
something astronomers say is entirely possible.

"I just turned my head and looked out the window, and I saw this bright
ball of fire come down," said Bobbie Turner, who lives in the 100 block
of West Roosevelt Drive in Meadowbrook. "I didn't see it hit the ground,
but I saw smoke and red flame coming from it."

About 10 a.m. Monday, Turner's husband, Jim Turner, searched an adjacent
cornfield, which is shorn of vegetation for the winter and essentially
rock-free. Turner picked up rock-shaped objects that appeared ordinary,
but he took them inside his garage, anyway.

Upon further inspection, the Vietnam and Iraq war veteran did not know
what to make of the rocks.

"I first took it out of the field, and it had a little sparkle to it,"
Turner said Wednesday.

A researcher at Washington University's McDonnell Center for the Space
Sciences describes most meteorites as having a "fusion crust," which is
a glassy appearance caused by heat in the atmosphere when the meteor is
descending to Earth. Most meteorites also have an aerodynamic shape.

"If it didn't have those (characteristics), I would strongly suspect
that it isn't a meteorite," said Randy Korotev, a research professor at
the St. Louis-based campus. "Most stop glowing miles above the Earth."

Korotev said the only sure way to determine whether the rocks are
meteorites is by analyzing their chemistry.

Bruce Wilking, a professor of astronomy at the University of
Missouri-St. Louis, said the celestial event over the weekend was not a
meteor shower and "totally unexpected" by the scientific community.

"There are meteorites and meteor wrongs," Wilking said, tongue-in-cheek,
in response to the number of people who claim to find meteors in yards
and fields.

The Turners said they plan to take their rock to get analyzed soon.

"I don't know if it is or if it isn't, but I would like to know," Jim
Turner said Wednesday.

Korotev said the question about where the meteor landed persists.

"Everybody wants to know where it landed, but we don't know," he said.
"Something like this could be the size of a softball or smaller but
still create a huge amount of light."

News reports detailed meteor sightings that lit up the sky about 8 p.m.
Sunday in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin.

If the rocks do turn out to be of the space variety, the Turners have a
few choices, one of which could land them some extra cash.

"My son (Mike Turner) said it could be our lottery ticket," Jim Turner said.

Wilking agreed, but also said it could be used for research.

"It's very important scientifically, if this really turns out to be a
meteorite," he said. "There are people locally and nationally that would
like to study it."

But Wilking said, "If the person is an entrepreneurial sort, they could
probably sell it on eBay."

The Associated Press contributed some information for this article.
Received on Thu 08 Feb 2007 10:47:38 AM PST