[meteorite-list] UNT confirms man’s meteorite

From: Thunder Stone <stanleygregr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:10:14 -0700
Message-ID: <SNT117-W24E1728AE724E222866E44D2440_at_phx.gbl>

Seems like they could have done more testing.? Seems a little off.

Greg S.


http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/stories/DRC_meteor_1028.1d2463a9b.html


UNT confirms man?s meteorite

Down to Earth

11:58 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 27, 2010

By Rachel Mehlhaff / Staff Writer

A man recently found out that a rock he stumbled upon two years ago is actually a meteorite.

George Wright holds a meteorite he discovered near Lufkin, on Wednesday in Denton. Researchers at the University of North Texas confirmed that Wright?s find was from a meteor.


George Wright of Denton was walking outside his brother?s house in Lufkin when he kicked a rock that was sticking out of the ground. He knew it wasn?t like rocks that are typically found in the area, he said, because he hauled rocks for 30 years.

?I could tell it was different,? he said of the rock that was halfway buried in the clay.

Wright?s girlfriend convinced him to take the rock, which sat on a shelf at his parents? house for the past couple of years, to the University of North Texas.

?I had an idea it was a meteorite,? Wright said.

His suspicions were confirmed with the help of George Maxey and Ron DiIulio, UNT faculty members who put Wright?s rock to the meteorite test.

A meteoroid is the result of two asteroids colliding in space, DiIulio said.

DiIulio said an asteroid has three layers: the core, which is made of iron; the middle ?boundary? layer, which is a combination of stone and iron; and the outer ?mantle? layer, which is made of stone.

Each layer produces different types of meteorites that people find.

?Ninety-four percent of the meteorites that come in are rock,? he said.

He said 5 percent are iron and 1 percent of meteorites are stony iron.

Since the meteorite was found in Texas by a Denton resident, the university wanted to keep the meteorite in Denton, and UNT was willing to pay Wright $300 for his find.


But there is no easy answer to how much a meteorite is worth, as each type has a different monetary value, DiIulio said, adding that each part of an asteroid is important to scientific research.

He said a person has to research the market.

An iron meteorite, like the one weighing 300 grams that Wright found, is worth $1 per gram.

?Unless you find one of these oddballs like this,? said DiIulio, pointing to a stony iron meteorite ? worth closer to $50 per gram.

The stone meteorites are worth about 15 to 20 cents a gram.

To determine whether Wright?s rock was a meteorite, it went through several tests, starting with a test to see if it was attracted to magnets.

DiIulio said that even stone meteorites are usually attracted to magnets.

Researchers also check that it is solid and not porous, and that it is an irregular shape, Maxey said.

Meteorites usually don?t have sharp edges, and they have what look like ?thumb prints,? DiIulio said, which researchers believe form when a meteorite enters the Earth?s atmosphere and burns unevenly.

They don?t know the composition of Wright?s meteorite yet, he said.

And it is difficult to date the meteor that Wright?s rock came from, but DiIulio said he believes that the meteorite is from a meteor that fell in 1955 and was reported in the Port Arthur News.

DiIulio and Maxey are hoping to extract Earth rocks from the meteorite that will help them determine when it may have fallen.

?Earth rock may be easier for us to date,? DiIulio said.

He said that while they may not know whether it fell in 1955, he thinks the coincidence is significant.

This year UNT opened a lab that allows people to do just what Wright did ? bring in their finds and determine if they have meteorites or fossils.

?We have a lot of people come in with objects; they don?t know what they are,? Maxey said.

Many people bring in what DiIulio calls ?meteor-wrongs,? as opposed to meteorites. He has a collection of those items on a table in his office for comparison with possible meteorites.

He and Maxey encourage people to bring in objects they want tested. For more information, e-mail DiIulio at starman at unt.edu.
                                               
Received on Thu 28 Oct 2010 05:10:14 PM PDT