Marty learns how to track and find meteorites, and checks out a local collection | Where's Marty?
Hi Everyone!
Right off the bat I want you to go to Google and search the word "Meteor" right now. We'll wait.
HOW COOL WAS THAT!!!!
Today was all about a man who is one of the Earth's leading metor hunters, and by using a camera like this, one of a group of folks who nightly photograph the entire sky to try and see if a meteor slammed into the atmosphere while we slept.
Meet Mike Hankey seen here talking to K2, during a break in the action this morning during WJZ at 9, about everything Meteors. EVERYTHING!
Mike develops software as a vocation, but his passion is hunting down meteorites that strike the planet. (A Meteor is a big object entering the atmosphere. A meteorite is a fragment that survives the fiery plunge to the Earth's surface.) So far only about 1400 have been found worldwide, only four ever in Maryland. But given how much of the world is covered by water there have to be a lot unable to be located.
While in his office you are surrounded by dozens of them. Mostly pieces of the original solar system averaging 5 BILLION years old.
Though he did place in my hand a piece of the moon, and a small fragment of Mars. Really. That little chip has been verified by chemical composition, and such, as ejecta from a large meteor strike on Mars. Our gravity pulled it in.
(The Moon piece came from the same sort of impact on our satellite. And being so close to the Earth, again, our gravity pulled it right in too.)
The bigger pieces, as seen in K2's hands are iron and really heavy. After all that meteor was a part of the violent end of an asteroid, or a planetary impact, with the metal core surviving. (The smoothness created by the heat of the fall through the air.)
By the network of cameras looking up, and even Doppler weather radar sites, the path of a falling space rock is triangulated, and a location of possible impact is determined. At that point it is boots on the ground looking down for the evidence. He is an amazing man with a great story. And again another gem, we seem to find alot on "Where's Marty" of what is in "our own backyard. Enjoy the video's from this morning.
Marty B!