MONTROSE - Fallout from the meteor early Friday morning continues.
A meteor exploded in the sky somewhere between Colona and Montrose at 2:44 a.m. Friday, which prompted Mike Farmer and a few friends to drive 14 hours from Tucson, Ariz., to look for pieces of the meteor.
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A digital camera on top of Montrose High School caught Friday's meteor as it raced across the sky from the south before exploding. The MHS camera is one of 11 set up around the state as part of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science's All-Sky network. A meteor also exploded over the Black Canyon area in 2002, but Laura Hamilton, the Denver Museum's public relations manager, said Friday's meteor was the brightest one yet to be picked up by the program's All-Sky cameras.
Initially, it was thought the meteor broke up directly over Montrose, but with a strong wind that night Farmer suspects the fragments may have been blown northeast of town.
Farmer said finding pieces of the meteor can be like "finding $100 bills."
"There are different kinds of meteors, but a golf ball-sized piece of a rare one could bring up to $10,000," Farmer said. "It's really hard to say what the value is without seeing a piece first. Also, if there are a lot of pieces the price goes down."
The fragments will be black with a smooth exterior. Farmer said the inside is always a different color than the exterior. The more common meteors are 98 percent stone with a little nickel and iron in them while the more rare ones are comprised of solid steel.
"If we're lucky, they hit cars and houses, but I don't think that's the case here because we haven't heard anything," Farmer said. "There was a meteor that exploded over south Chicago last year where people were calling the police after the pieces hit their cars and houses. We found most of the loose pieces in the gutters after they had landed in the streets. Parking lots are always a good place to look because it's easier to see."
Farmer arrived in Montrose on Sunday and by Monday he was ready to head back to Tucson, but "I'll be back in a moment's notice if someone finds something."
Mike Jensen, who owns Jensen Meteorites in Aurora, Colo., with his brother, Bill, said if anyone finds a piece of the meteorite they should avoid touching it with their hands because finger-residue will contaminate them.
"Meteors are really important to scientists in helping them understand our solar system," Mike Jensen said. "Mike Farmer is a big time dealer while my brother and I are much lower down the ladder. He makes a full-time living off of meteors while we do it more from the scientific side."
Farmer said it's not unusual for the first meteor fragments to turn up weeks or months after impact, although scientists would prefer to get them before they're rained on.
With five All-Sky cameras making digital images of Friday's meteor, Farmer said chances are good that the debris can be triangulated, which would at least put the proverbial needle in a certain haystack.
"What I like to tell people is that until someone finds one, it's like a needle in a haystack, but you're not sure if it's the right haystack or if there's really a needle," Jensen said. "On Jan. 11 a meteor blew up not a half-mile from my house, but even looking for that was pretty futile in the tall grass. If you can get 100 or a 1,000 eyes out there looking, if it's in the back of hunters' minds, that will help."
For more information on the meteor, or to provide information if you saw it, go to www.cloudbait.com.
Contact Mike Robuck via e-mail at
miker@montrosepress.com.
Kaitlyn Heichel wrote on Nov 3, 2009 2:01 PM:
Sarah Bond wrote on Jul 13, 2009 5:31 PM: