Is it possible to find meteor particles in my driveway after a meteor shower?

Question

I have heard that you can find iron from meteors with a magnet. Can I find it in my yard and how will I recognize it?

Answer 1

Of the roughly 8000 meteorites that have been found on Earth, not one comes from a meteor shower.  It is believed that shower meteors are all made of very friable materials which invariably burn up in the atmosphere from the heat of entry into the atmosphere.  

Of meteorites, about 20% are "siderolites", that is, the nickel-iron types that respond to magnets.  These tend to feel quite heavy for their size.  Your chances of finding one are not good, but it is possible.  Twice in the past 20 years or so meteorites have hit Wethersfield, Connecticut.  So random chance could get you one.

But your odds of drawing to an inside straight are a lot better!

Answer 2

It's possible to find meteors in your yard whether there's been a shower or not, and a shower isn't going to raise your odds any.  It's extremely unlikely in any case, especially if you live in town where the ground was turned over for development.  Ideally you want a place with little development or erosion so something that falls will sit near the surface for thousands of years.  A metal detector works pretty well in that case.

Answer 3

Well you probably canot find any meteor particles unless you are

the proud owner of a Hughes Aircraft Model 37BR501 Hydrolizer with the Option 15A1 Collection Accessory Unit. These devices are rather large and operate on 115 Volts AC 400 Hz power sources (common in most aircraft). These units are sometimes available on the surplus market as leftovers from some scientific experiment or government project.

Assuming you find one on EBay, you might also want to consider the fact that you will most likely need a C-130 Aircraft to install it in, and a good crew to fly it, plus a

fantastic source of Av Gas.

Answer 4

Yes it is possible but highly unlikely, the particles will have way burnt out before hitting the earth.

Answer 5

Possible but doubtful.  Meteors during meteor showers are mainly about the size of the dust grains on top of your fridge.  They burn up long before they reach the ground.  If one did make it to the ground you'd be sure to see where it landed since it would be extremely bright!  Let's say maybe one did fall and you found a rock of iron, how would you know it is a meteorite?  Iron meteorites are about 10x denser the rocks here on Earth.  If you pick one up it will feel much heavier then normal.  If it feels extremely heavy for it's size, you might have found a meteorite, but if it feels the same weight of another rock of comparable size then it's probably just a plain old boring rock from earth.

Answer 6

Any particles that reach the surface from a meteor that dissipated in our atmosaphere  would bit minuscule, and you wouldn't be able to tell their origin anyway.  Unless you really bothered to take your tiny collection of molecules to a university for study, but even that wouldn't be high on their priority list.  

Now a genuine meteorite, however...  well, you've seen impact craters.  You'd know what that was.

Answer 7

Possible, yes. Probable, no.

The meteors that you see are skimming across the sky miles above you so any particles will land thousands of miles from you.  Most of the particles will burn up before they reach the ground (the light you see in the sky).

You can find meteorites with a powerful magnet and they look like rusted, crusty iron.  Good luck!

Answer 8

It might be possible, but the particles will most likely be much too small to see with the human eye.