Meteorite searching

Meteorites are wanderers of the universe. Created in explosions on other planets, they fall onto the Earth in quantities up to 120 tons per day. But not even here can they find peace. Meteorite diggers look for them, saw in pieces and sell expensive space goods, and connoisseurs literally hunt for extraterrestrial beauty. Meteorites that cross the Earth's orbit enter the field of gravity and fall to the surface of our planet. A falling meteorite is accompanied by bright glowing, loud rumble and can even end in an explosion. It used to cause real horror even 100-150 years ago, and is still cultivated by many science fiction film directors. And though meteorite falling holds many secrets, some of them find a scientific explanation. Meteorites are classified into three groups according to their structure: stone, iron and stony-iron.Stony meteorites fall to Earth most often; it is believed that space is dominated by a stone component. Chemical analysis of such meteorites shows the presence of silicon, magnesium and calcium in significant quantities. However, we only know a few large stony meteorites, because stone cannot withstand loads during the fall and breaks into small pieces. At such moments we can observe meteor rains: each piece of a meteorite heats up passing through the Earth's atmosphere, glows, and we see "falling" stars. Upon reaching land, stony meteorites disintegrate from the bounce; in addition, they are highly susceptible to destructive wind effect and temperature changes. Iron meteorites are made of almost pure iron with a small percentage of nickel, which allows us to identify an iron meteorite. There is no such an alloy on the Earth, but it is widely present in space. Iron meteorites are usually large and very heavy. The largest meteorite found in Africa in the early XX century weighed about 60 tons! Iron meteorites are well preserved for thousands of years, and their true age can only be detected with the help of special tests. Some time ago iron meteorites caused the so-called "meteor fever". The fact is many of them contain sulfur, which gives such meteorites yellowish color. No prizes for guessing that yellow metal is very similar to gold and many people were trying to “extract space gold " out of meteorite aliens. From: Archaeological Detectors