BREAKING - Possible Meteor Impact Northern Nevada

Looks like they found some of it in...


a parking lot?


Sweet score.

One of the successful hunters was Peter Jenniskens, an expert in meteors and meteorites, perhaps best known for retrieving the fragments of asteroid 2008 TC3 which fell in Sudan in 2008. Astronomer Franck Marchis wrote in his Cosmic Diary blog that Jenniskens realized the size of the California meteor was very similar to 2008 TC3, and so fragments should have reached the surface, just like they did in 2008.

Jenniskens went out searching and found a four-gram fragment of the meteor in a parking lot in Lotus, California.

a radar data map which showed that dozens of fragments from the 100g to 1 kg range may have reached the ground. Jenniskens said the fragment he found was a Carbonaceous Chondrites from the CM group of meteorites, “a rare type of primitive meteorite rich in organic compounds,” he said.

cosmicdiary.org...

www.universetoday.com...

More updates on the meteor hunters in el dorado and placer county CA

One woman found a 17 g (worth about $17,000 while walking her dog!

www.latimes.com...

News from the meteorite-list archives.

The meteorite is officially called "Sutters Mill", still an unclassified Carbonaceous Chondrite

A GRAM of this material is going for about 2.5 times an OUNCE of gold. Price drops with quantity, but EXPENSIVE.

Truly one of the most important witnessed meteorite falls in history.


Excerpt -Meteorite List 2-May-2012

>Well. Now one can see the effect of the popularization of meteorites, >through their exposure in the mass media, on the general public. $4,000 a >gram for an unclassified carbonaceous chondrite! I was asked yesterday to >pay, what computed to be $3,000 a gram, for some Cali driveway crumbs. I >wouldn't legitimize them by calling them "frags". And I have news for >you....one of our best known "johnny on the spot" hunter/collectors forked >over $22,000 for a, less than 20 gram, broken piece! > >Yes, friends. You have just seen the end of an era in the collection and >valuation of meteorites. This fall will go down, as Ruben said so >presciently on national TV, as the most important fall in the history of the >United States. Why? Because never again will we be allowed, almost >unfettered access to public and private lands, nor will we be able to >purchase, even fragments, for any sane amount of money. The proverbial cat >is out of the bag. The "publik" will never let it be put back in again.

You can see a few of these stones here: (they are up for auction presently to the highest bidder)

Sutters Mill Meteorite

Originally posted by charlyv


The meteorite is officially called "Sutters Mill", still an unclassified Carbonaceous Chondrite

That's pretty hilarious/fitting considering Sutter's Mill was pretty much the first place gold was found in CA and had one of (if not the) first gold mills in the area.

Originally posted by stanguilles7

Originally posted by charlyv


The meteorite is officially called "Sutters Mill", still an unclassified Carbonaceous Chondrite

That's pretty hilarious/fitting considering Sutter's Mill was pretty much the first place gold was found in CA and had one of (if not the) first gold mills in the area.

Yea, I got a chuckle out of that when it was announced as well. Meteorite falls are usually named after the closest landmark or town where the first pieces are recovered. It is quite remarkable.

more updates on the meteor hunters.

video at link

www.bbc.co.uk...

Originally posted by stanguilles7
more updates on the meteor hunters.

video at link

www.bbc.co.uk...

That is a better video and report than I have seen in the U.S. on this, and of course it fell here.
BBC is right on it.

A further video report on the Sutters Mill Meteorite finds:

Video of California Daytime Fireball Surfaces: link

Video footage has finally surfaced of the daytime fireball that illuminated the sky over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California back in April. NASA and the SETI Institute had asked the public to submit any amateur photos or video footage of the event, and previously a just few photos were taken of the event, even though it happened in broad daylight and created sonic booms that were heard over a wide area, back on Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 7:51 a.m. PDT. A few weeks later, Shon Bollock, who was making a time-lapse kayaking video just outside Kernville, California realized he had captured the bolide streaking through the air. This video shows the event several times, successively zooming in for a closer look. According to NASA it is the only footage of the meteor thus far.

Strange that they say Shon was making a " time-lapse kayaking video", when the footage looks like normal frame rate video (between 25-30 fps), and there is not even any water let alone a kayak in sight. Not saying that anyone is being deceitful, but it does seem a little odd.

On a related note, samples of the Sutter's Mill meteorite have been changing hands for ar ound a thousand USD per gram.

I'm sure there are many more pieces out there waiting to be found - I'd certainly be out there looking if I was anywhere near there