General Question

Coloma's avatar

Astronomy fans anyone traveling to Coloma Ca. to search for the Lyrid meteor fragments?

Asked by Coloma (47193points) April 28th, 2012
37 responses
“Great Question” (2points)

Big excitement in my neck o’ the woods with Weds. meteor hit in my sleepy little town of Lotus/Coloma Ca. N.A.S.A. scientists and other meteor hunters are converging today in the search for meteor fragments, and I am heading out soon to do my own bloodhounding around these hills. Just curious if you or anyone you know is traveling out west for this exciting event?

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Answers

mazingerz88's avatar

Wow, now that you mentioned it. Can we sell these stuff-?

Coloma's avatar

@mazingerz88 Of course, even though it belongs to the universe, people will capitalize.
Small fragments of a few grams sell for 1k, but I’m just excited to find a fragment of my own. :-)

thorninmud's avatar

Did you hear the BOOM, @Coloma?

Coloma's avatar

@thorninmud Yes I did! It was HUGE followed by some after booms. I had no idea what it was! :-)
It’s very exciting! I am packing my backpack right now with a magnifying glass, hope I don’t start a fire. lol I know a lot of secret trails and the radar says the larger fragments should be southwest within about a 3 sq. mile range of the target area in Coloma. :-)

FutureMemory's avatar

How did you get them to name the town after you?

thorninmud's avatar

Cool! Good luck!

DominicX's avatar

Aw man, that sounds cool…a friend of mine was just talking about going to Folsom Lake this weekend…

Coloma's avatar

@FutureMemory haha..well, actually I am in Lotus, but the borders of Lotus/Coloma are pretty blurry except for a little sign. lol The target zone is actually 3 miles SW as the crow flies, so there is a possibility I could even have some fragments on my 5 acres. After I spend the afternoon in the main zone I’ll come back for some Corona hiking around my house too. ;-)

thorninmud's avatar

Let us know if you find anything

bewailknot's avatar

Any links to pix of the fireball?

Coloma's avatar

www.astrobob.areavoices.com

There are lots of links here, Astrobob rocks! Oookay…I’m outta here. Wish me luck, dodging the tourists and rattlesnakes. haha

Coloma's avatar

Links and story about 3 posts down on the site.

Rarebear's avatar

Careful. They could be harboring zombie viruses.

bewailknot's avatar

@Coloma thank you – how very cool.

flutherother's avatar

Exciting! Keep us posted. Our last meteorite fell over 200 years ago.

YARNLADY's avatar

Oh, yes. I saw it on the news.

filmfann's avatar

I considered going. I am a huge astronomy nut, and I would love to find a chunk of meteorite.
I heard the boom, and didn’t know what it was for several days. It must have been deafening where you were, because I am NOT close to the impact area.

zigmund's avatar

How will you know a meteorite bit from some regular terrestrial rock? What’s its identifying characteristic?

Salem88's avatar

No fair…you have sexy geese and a meteorite:-) !

As aboves said, “Very exciting and cool”. Waiting for update.

I think it Rocks. Lol

RocketGuy's avatar

Coloma – ground zero for strange new diseases (Andromeda Strain)

Coloma's avatar

Well…no luck, but…tomorrow is another day! :-)
Hiked around about a 2 miles radius, surprisingly not that many people out, but it was a magnificent day on the river trails in the area, hovering around 81–82 degrees with a nice breeze. I am convinced the elusive meteor marmots have stashed the big fragments in their burrows. lol

@zigmund You are looking for black, porous rock matter, similar to lava.
From what I’ve read metal detectors are not helpful, although lots of people are using them. The metal content in this particular meteorite is very low so a visual search is just as effective.

Aaaah…it’s Corona time now, actually it’s an ethnic beer shower. lol
Have 2 TingTaos, a Pacifico and a Stella Artois, the international beer shower begins now at Colomas. ;-)
Got some great nature pics though, the river is running high and fast and I betcha a lot of fragments are in the water, and bonus, I didn’t run into any Mountain Lions stalking the deer trails. haha

Cheers!

Dutchess_III's avatar

So…did you see it/hear it/feel it when it hit @Coloma? How do you know it hit?

A meteorite hit my car windshield once. Nobody believes me, but it’s true. It’s out in the street somewhere, but I doubt anyone is going to look for it…because nobody believes me. :( The street sweeper ate it by now, I’m sure.

YARNLADY's avatar

@zigmund It is interesting to note, that the experts can tell just by looking.

Coloma's avatar

—@Dutchess_III Yes, I heard the boom it was amazingly loud, I couldn’t figure out WHAT had happened. The animals were going nuts, it was a stampede of horses and a shriek fest with the geese. THEY knew something was up, us silly humans just pondered for a few seconds and went back to whatever we were doing til the news hit. lol

Dutchess_III's avatar

Oh WOW! How cool, @Coloma!!! How far away? Were they expecting it?

The meteorite that hit my windshield didn’t boom. It just clinked.

Coloma's avatar

@Dutchess_III No, nobody expected it. haha The target area is 3 miles from me as the crow flies across the canyon near on the river in Coloma/Lotus. “They” scientists, are saying the larger fragments would have traveled further by several miles SW of the main strike.
I hope they find more, it’s a rare type of meteorite and so it’s a meteorite rush in the gold country now. :-)

Dutchess_III's avatar

Send me some! And I’ll send you some pebbles from our street!

mazingerz88's avatar

@Coloma Ok, just so you know, be careful about touching that meteor. Make sure it’s not oozing with a gooey substance that would attach to your body, dissolve and absorb you to be a part of its terrifying yucky-looking mass. Next thing you know, you’ll hear people around you screaming, Ahhhhh, it’s the Blob-!

bewailknot's avatar

Ahhhhhh. That movie scared me so bad when I saw it. That and Day of the Triffids. Ahhhh.

flutherother's avatar

@Coloma There is absolutely no reason to panic

FutureMemory's avatar

@bewailknot You sound like you’re at the doctor. Open up and say….

Coloma's avatar

Haha “The Blob”, that was an original when I was a kid.

flutherother's avatar

It seems to have been a rare type of meteorite worth $200 a gram.

Coloma's avatar

@flutherother Yes, our county needs to add a meteorite assayer to all the gold assayers in these hills now. Somewhere out in these thousands of acres of hills and woodlands lies a big chunk of that space rock, probably being used as a hot rock for a lizard. lol

mazingerz88's avatar

Wow, it sells for that much? Hmm, I don’t know but I keep imagining astronauts manning the International Space Station tossing rocks out there window while their henchmen pose as meteor hunters down here. Lol.

YARNLADY's avatar

I just saw on the news, a lucky lady found a huge l7 gram chunk. She was walking her dog in the park like she does every day, and noticed an odd looking rock. They are actually worth over $1,000 a gram and up. Her husband found a gold nugget lying on the ground nearby the same day.

Another hunter who had been looking three days was paid $2,000 in cash right on the spot for a 2 gram piece.

Coloma's avatar

@YARNLADY Wow! Maybe I better go for a midnight walk tonight. haha
I scoured around for 3.5 hours on Saturday, nothing. Boo Hoo!

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