How to Collect Micrometeorites in Your Backyard
Meteors rain down on the earth every hour of every day. Most of these are hardly larger than a grain of rice or a pea. The majority are little more than particles of dust, 10 to 40 micrometers (0.0004-0.0016 inch) in size. The average one is scarcely a quarter of the width of a human hair. The atmosphere makes short work of the larger ones. The remainder of these small meteors—-called "micrometeorites"—-are perpetually sifting down to the surface. Ten thousand tons of them every day.
And they fall on everything. Which means that you can easily collect some for yourself. The great French astronomer-artist, Lucien Rudaux, was one of the first to do this and made something of a hobby of it. He took a great many photos of the microscopic meteorites he found.
http://io9.com/5984951/how-to-collect-meteorites-in-your-backyard
I first heard about this method after the Cherbakul meteorite, and I found a lot of magnetic stuff in my gutter.
Unfortunately my microscope isn't working, and I hadn't had a chance to look at it.
Yesterday's bolide in Argentina reminded me of how much of this stuff falls to earth everyday.
"Meteors are smaller fragments. In this case, it was a larger object. We can calculate it was about 20cm in diameter," Mr Coghlan said.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/04/22/14/33/ball-of-light-turns-night-to-day-in-argentina
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