[quote="hstarbuck"][quote="Sofia"]
It was hard to tell from the picture. What was the sizes of the pieces of meteorite?[/quote]
A simple dime or penny in the photo for scaling perspective would have answered this. Oh, well.[/quote]
[quote=" http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21764-california-meteorite-is-rare-rock-laden-with-organics.html"]
[float=right][img3="[b][color=#0000FF]Fragments collected from the April 22 fireball (Franck Marchis)[/color][/b]"]http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Fragments_FMarchis-580x507.jpg[/img3][/float]California meteorite is rare rock laden with organics
New Scientist, 01 May 2012 by Sara Reardon
<<A meteorite that landed in northern California last week is much more valuable than scientists first thought.
After the meteor was sighted streaking through the sky on 22 April, meteorite hunters found fragments of the rock, identified by the "fusion crust" that forms when it burns in the atmosphere. NASA and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, also mobilised a search team of about 30 scientists, last weekend, to look for the fragile black rocks.
The meteorite turns out to be a very rare type of rock called CM chondrite, which makes up less than 1 per cent of the meteorites that fall to Earth. Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, says it is not clear whether it is rare because it easily burns up in the atmosphere or there are just fewer of these rocks in space.
The Murchison meteorite, a large CM chondrite that made landfall in Australia in 1969, is now one of the most studied rocks in the world.
Besides being rare, CM chondrites contain a lot of carbon and organic materials such as amino acids. Some believe this type of meteorite may have brought the first building blocks of life to Earth. As CM chondrite is one of the oldest types of rock in the universe, Cooke says that dating the newly discovered fragments will be a priority.
By coincidence, the meteorite fell in the same area that prospectors flocked to more than 150 years ago during California's gold rush – and it has attracted prospectors of its own. Franck Marchis of the SETI Institute says the public's response has been overwhelming. More than 1000 people showed up at the crash site, with rocks they'd found, to ask the scientists if they were meteorites. Due to its rarity, Cooke reckons 30 grams of CM chondrite is worth about $6000.>>[/quote][quote=" http://www.universetoday.com/94925/fragments-of-meteorite-worth-their-weight-in-gold/#more-94925"]
Fragments of Meteorite Worth Their Weight in Gold
by Jason Major on May 1, 2012
<<Actually it’s more like 3.5 times their weight in gold, according to today’s market value… and meteorite experts from SETI and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
During the daylight hours of April 22, 2012, reports came in from all over the north central California area of an extremely bright fireball — described as a “glittering sparkler” — and accompanying loud explosion. It was soon determined that this was the result of a meteoroid about the size of a minivan entering the atmosphere and disintegrating. It was later estimated that the object weighed about 70 metric tons and detonated with a 5-kiloton force.
Over a thousand meteorite hunters scrambled to the area, searching for any traces of the cosmic visitor’s remains. After a few days, several pieces of the meteorite were found and reported by five individuals, adding up to 46 grams in total. Those pieces could be worth over $9,000 USD, according to Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center. Based on today’s market, that’s about 3.6 times the value of gold (about $1,660 per troy ounce — 31.1 grams). The high value is due to the extreme rarity of the meteorite fragments. The California fireball is now known to have been created by a CM chondrite, a type of carbonaceous meteorite with material characteristics similar to comets.
According to Franck Marchis, Planetary Astronomer at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute and one of the coordinators of the meteorite reporting teams, CM chondrites appear to have been altered by water, and have deuterium-to-hydrogen ratios in line with what’s been measured in the tails of comets Halley and Hyakutake. They also have been found to contain organic compounds and amino acids, lending to the hypothesis that such meteorites may have helped supply early Earth with the building blocks for life. But due to their fragile composition, they are also incredibly rare. Only 1% of known meteorites are CM chondrites, making even the small handful of fragments found in California very valuable. “This will be only the third observed CM fall in the US, after Crescent, OK, in 1936, (78 g) and Murray, KY, in 1950 (13 kg),” Marchis told Universe Today.
As far as what the finders will do with the fragments, that’s entirely up to them. “They can sell them on eBay or they can lend them to the scientists… or make a donation.” Marchis said. The largest CM chondrite ever recovered was from a fall in Murchison, Australia on September 28, 1969. The total mass of its collected fragments weighed in at over 100 kg.>>[/quote]