A Maine museum is offering a $25,000 reward to anyone who can locate a kilogram of a meteorite seen across the state and northeastern Canada over the weekend.
The Maine Mineral and Gem Museum said “multiple sonic booms” were heard from the fiery meteor as it moved through the skies Saturday afternoon in Canada’s New England and New Brunswick.
“An extraordinary event occurred in Washington County,” the museum wrote on Facebook. “A fireball was spotted through the sky – in the daytime!”
According to NASA, this is the first ever radar-observed meteorite fall in Maine. It was spotted three different times in the state and three more times in New Brunswick, one of Canada’s easternmost provinces.
NASA’s Doppler radar detected multiple meteorites from the meteor, according to the museum.
A Maine museum is offering a $25,000 reward to anyone who can locate a kilogram of a meteorite seen across the state and northeastern Canada over the weekend.
The daylight fireball is considered “incredibly rare,” the museum says, because most are usually seen at night when they contrast with the darkness.
They tell interested people that if you can find a kilo of it, they will give you a $25,000 reward.
“If a fireball is bright enough to be seen in broad daylight, it would have been extraordinarily bright if it had been at night,” said Darryl Pitt, chairman of the museum’s meteorite division.
“The existence of positive Doppler radar returns — meteorites that have descended through the atmosphere just a few miles above the ground — assures us that there are meteorites waiting to be found.”
One of the witnesses told the American Meteor Society that a meteorite had a “long glowing tail,” even though it had no smoke behind it.
Another described the meteorite as “bright red” with a “very white” tail, adding: “It was so bright, especially against the clear blue sky.”
The meteorite was observed for a total of about four minutes and 40 seconds, which NASA considers “relatively short.”
NASA said on its website that the “meteorite masses calculated from the radar signatures range from 1.59 g (0.004 pounds) to 322 g (0.7 pounds), although greater masses may have fallen.”
According to NASA, this is the first ever radar-observed meteorite fall in Maine. It was spotted three different times in the state and three more times in New Brunswick, one of Canada’s easternmost provinces
The Maine Mineral and Gem Museum (pictured) said “multiple sonic booms” were heard from the fiery meteor as it moved through the skies Saturday afternoon in Canada’s New England and New Brunswick
Anyone claiming to have found pieces of the meteor should make an appointment with their research lab technologist.
After that, it takes five to ten working days to verify its authenticity before the spotter can be rewarded.
“Specimen with advanced botanicals are not from this fireball event!” said the museum. “And please remember: you must have permission from the landowner BEFORE hunting meteorites.”
said Pitt WABI that if you get permission, anyone can potentially find them, given how unique they are.
“It should look like it has a fresh crust. The result of burning through the atmosphere, because that’s exactly what it experienced, it literally gets roasted as it burns through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Pitt said.
The Maine Mineral and Gem Museum has the world’s largest collection of lunar meteorites
Maine Mineral and Gem Museum’s exhibit of meteorites
Darryl Pitt, chairman of the museum’s meteorite department
Locating a softball-sized space rock in the wilderness could be like finding a needle in a haystack: Pitt said the estimated area where the meteors impacted is about a mile wide and extends 10-12 miles, all the way to Canada.
“So it’s fresh and black around it and over time more water seeps in, if there’s enough metal it starts to oxidize a little bit, but that’s why it’s important to get to that as soon as possible because they will pop out a bit more and look less earthy,” he added.
Pitt believes that while someone might get $25,000 in the bank, their true worth is “worth their weight in gold.”
