Meteoritic Dust |
How would you go about collecting meteoritic dust? (Ultimately, it is star dust, literally, but we will save that for later.) Think about it for a minute before you go on. It may be easier than you think.
You may think of meteorites (and the dust made from meteorites) as incredibly exotic material from the depths of space. And you would be correct. But what you may not have known is that it isn't all that rare. In fact, you've come into contact with it many times. Why not go collect some right now?
It's simple. Go over to the nearest bookshelf (TV top or anything that lies undisturbed for a few days). Despite your best efforts (or perhaps enhanced by your lack of effort), there will be some dust. Part of that dust is likely meteoritic dust. Most of it is likely to be ordinary Earth dust -- fabric particles, bits of grit blown about by the wind, cat dander and even tiny bits of skin. There is no easy way to sort out the small percentage of material of meteoritic origin, but undoubtedly there is some.
But there is one way to collect material that likely is mostly meteoritic in nature. Find yourself a magnet and the downspout from a building. Collect some of the water from the next rainfall. Let it settle well, and then slowly move a magnet through the sediment that will collect at the bottom. (By the way, nature uses this process of materials settling out of water, along with some naturally occurring chemical "cements," to form sedimentary rocks.) Some of the material that collects on the magnet will be of industrial or otherwise terrestrial origin, but a good percentage of it will be meteoritic in origin. (Even stony meteorites usually contain iron.) You also can try fixing a fine mesh filter material (such as an old panty hose, if you have one) over the downspout to collect the samples.
The meteoritic material often is quite fine, probably a millimeter or less in size, so a magnifying glass or small microscope will help. Most of the easily recognizable particles will be spherical or slightly jagged.
It's hardly worth making much of a study of it, but it is interesting to think that some of the material falling on your home with every rain came from space and is billions of years old!
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