CompuServe Messages

Hey Rob, Thanks for the kudos on my infomercial. Al Mitterling and I are still trying to figure how to get folks interested in contributing their input regarding things meteoritic… Ahh, Cape Cod…International Pancake House, ice cold beaches (for me!). sand dunes, saltwater taffy,…girls! Well, college was a long time ago. Sigh! I'm not sure how often meteorites are found by those purposely looking for them. In the Atacama desert in the high Andes, Rob Haag used a jeep and paraglider system to spot suspicious craterlets. On the Nullabor desert in Australia, three-wheelers and binoculars are used to scour the desert for suspicious individuals. Most pros go to known strewn fields where their chance of being successful is much better. Of course educating the local folks, then rewarding them handsomely seems to be the very best way of finding meteorites! I've no substantiated idea why falling stars are sometimes green or white or orange or occasionally varigate-colored, starting off pinkish-orange, then purple,then green… Meteors can be view on virtually any clear night. I've yet to spend any clear night outside for longer than 2 hours when I haven't seen at least one meteor. Of course, I'm usually looking. (For that mattter, satellites and space stations are common sights, too!) So it was that with a picnic mat and a bit of determination, my son whose now 10 and my daughter were individually initiated into wishing on a falling star. Those episodic meteoroids are likely the size of rice grains or peas and 70 miles up. As regard the green individual you witnessed, I'd think from you description that it must have been at least the size of a bowling ball or larger. These larger fireballs are called bolides. One fell a few weeks ago North of Montreal, and folks have recovered at least 10 fragments with a combined weight in excess of 20 kg. 5 individuals were found the first day, the largest a 5 kg piece. Canada's GSC clamped down on letting any of the specimens out of their country, but the word is that lots more's been found and the black market's already sneaked some out to Europe, where they're beginning to be offered! As the Meteoritical Society is meeting presently in Prague, Czechoslovakia, you can probably expect some St. Roberts to come into this country through the back door, along with a lot of Moldavites and some Stannern eucrites, I'm sure. My first bolide was when I was 12 and in the Scouts. Sitting on telephone poles situated around a campfire up in Camp Smith, Aiea, Hawaii, overlooking Pearl Harbor, a bunch of us just let ourselves lay back onto the ground staring up at a very dark starry sky. After an eternity of small talk, suddenly a huge brilliant orange orb about 2-3 times the size of the moon pierced the sky above (we all thought it was only a couple hundred feet above us!) and broke up into a shower of smaller pieces like a sparkler over the Pacific horizon. No noise….all silent. A moment later, only a filmy green after-image was stained on my retina. "Did you see that!!??" And we all confirmed we shared that experience. To this day, whenever I run into one of those guys from thirty years ago, it's always, "Do you remember ….?" Another memorable falling star was one I saw 7 years ago. It was Spring and about 8 p.m. in Scottsdale, Arizona. While walking from our conference hotel to a new shopping mall ("only 3 blocks away"–actually more like half a mile!), my wife and I saw a brilliant white individual fall vertically and sputter out well above the horizon. The light from that meteorite clearly defined the trees and walls that lined the street. That was my wife's first meteor fall! Two days later, en route from Tucson to Phoenix after a day of walking into cactus at the Desert Museum and seeing Doug Bullock and purchasing my first meteorites, we saw another fiery white meteorite plummet vertically ahead of us, again defining the low mountains to the south that was obscured moments before by the black of the night…then leaving only the red taillights of the trailer trucks far ahead of us. By then, my wife was convinced spectacular falling stars occurred all the time and that all she had to do was spend a little time outside at night! Boy, but she hates mosquitoes. Next month will greet the recurrence of the Perseids. Remember last year's fizzle?? I did catch maybe 15 per hour at it's height, but it seemed hardly a "shower" as in rain shower… Still, I thought it interesting that the Perseids are always ORANGE…a lot like the fireball from a Roman candle. I'll stay up, just in case it'll surprise us this year. H.H. Nininger noted one meteorite that contained nodules of copper. Maybe that accounts for an occasional green. Or maybe it's the ionized oxygen. I wonder if green meteor streaks photograph pink, like the Orion nebula does??? Take care, Joseph