It would have been a simple matter to use the magnets to collect all the little bits of magnetic stuff that falls on the house over time, from the sky. And, since most of these bits of magnetic stuff are iron meteorites, I’d be able to collect a zillion meteorites every year! Bwa ha ha ha!!!

But then I read In Search of Stardust: Amazing Micrometeorites and Their Terrestrial Imposters by micrometeorite expert Jon Larsen.

It turns out that while micrometeorites do in fact fall on us at a regular rate, and some of them are attracted to magnets, the vast majority of magnetic bits that land on us from the sky are other things.

Anything that involves a lot of kinetic energy, ferrous metals, heat, etc. can spew a small amount of metal bits into the dust in the air. Driving. Burning trash. Stuff they do on construction sites. Most of that dust does not go very far. But, up the street from me right now, there is a work crew using big saws to cut through asphalt pavement and concrete to open a culvert system to fix a sink hole. That is going to throw bits of dust, some of which is ferrous rock that is being melted by the fast moving saw blade, into the air far enough to make it over to my roof. That particular operation will probably not donate a fake meteorite to my collection, but all the construction in the area will collectively spew candidates. Even closer to home there is a large crew of law cutters. In a few minutes they’ll take out those infernal blower and start blowing crap around everywhere. Whatever microbeads of melted ferrous junk local construction crews have spewed around get to fly up into the air again, and some of them will find a spot on the roof of a would be micrometeorite collector!

But mot of all is the fireworks. A very short distance from my house, maybe a football field length if that, is the stating ground for what I’m pretty sure is the largest fireworks display in the state, or at least, in the top three, and thus, one of the largest ones in the country. Fireworks produce zillions and zillions of faux micrometeorites with each explosion. They are probably all over the neighborhood. They are probably all over my house. The distance from my house to the launching pad is less than the distance from the launching pad to the height at which the fireworks explode, and I’m roughly down wind.

So much for me finding micrometeorites! And, what am I going to do with all these old hard drives???

Anyway, despite my personal disappointment with respect to this project, In Search of Stardust: Amazing Micrometeorites and Their Terrestrial Imposters is a wonderful and interesting book by a true self made expert. From the publishers:

Tiny pieces of space rock called micrometeorites are everywhere on Earth. In Search of Stardust shows you how to find them!

The solar system is a dusty place. Every day approximately 100 metric tons of cosmic dust collides with Earth, mainly in the form of micrometeorites. Most of these mineral particles (iron, nickel, etc.) are smaller than grains of sand, and they are falling down on us all the time and all over the globe. Still, little is known about these exotic extraterrestrials.

In Search of Stardust is the first comprehensive popular science book about micrometeorites. It’s also a photo documentary comprising more than 1,500 previously unpublished images: the first atlas of micrometeorites, hundreds of which are depicted here in high-resolution color microscopic photography and in scanning electron microscope imagery.

Author Jon Larsen shows readers how and where to look for micrometeorites, explains the history of micrometeoritics, and offers chapters about micrometeorite formation, classification, and analysis. Thanks to Larsen’s work, for the first time it is now possible for anyone to find these amazing tiny stones from space.

For more than a century it was believed these incredible space objects could be found only in pristine, unsullied environs like Antarctica and ocean floors. Larsen became the first to break the code and find micrometeorites in populated areas — in fact, they can be found in the nearest rain gutter. In the book Larsen explains how anyone with a bit of inexpensive equipment can find their own micrometeorites.

It was recently discovered that King Tut’s dagger was forged from a chunk of a meteorite. What else is made of extraterrestrial rock? Join the hunt!

About the Author: A guitarist, composer, record producer, and painter, Jon Larsen began researching micrometeorites in 2009. His breakthrough came in February 2015 with the verification of the world’s first micrometeorite discovered in a populated area. In January 2016, Dr. Matthew Genge at the Natural History Museum in London evaluated and verified Jon Larsen’s collection of “urban micrometeorites.” Larsen resides in As, Norway.

This is a meteor streaking across the sky in the vicinity of the Urals:

Numerous additional films of that event and some analysis are on Phil Plait’s blog, here.
Here’s a FAKE video purported to be a crater formed by a fragment of that meteor BUT IT ISN’T:

From Phil Plait’s blog: “Note also lots of hoaxes are turning up, like a video of a flaming crater that’s actually a flaming pit in Turkmenistan that’s been burning for decades (called “The Door to Hell”). Be cautious and be skeptica”

… apparently the shock wave of the meteor passing over head or breaking apart blasted apart doors and windows and such in nearby villages and about 1,000 people were somewhat injured by flying debris.

I’m also told that there is no connection between the nearby asteroid flyby and this event. According to Phil Plait (see link above) the direction of the objects flying across the sky in the videos seems to be different than the direction of the visiting asteroid. That is all provisional, of course, This is a breaking story and it will be a while before we can totally understand the details.

Anthony Watts, of the science-denialist Whats Up with That blog, has got his shorts in a knot because of a post I wrote indicating that he is a boob. He is upset because in a screen shot of him talking about a totally absurd pseudo-scientific claim that should have been rejected out of hand, I failed to include enough of the post to show that he was skeptical about the claim.

Let me be very very clear: This is not a claim to be skeptical about. This is a Teapot orbiting the Sun between Earth and Mars claim. A person who has reported debunked claims about alien life again and again, reporting in a fake scientific journal, has made an absurd claim. To understand the level of absurdity check out PZ Myers post, written after mine, which goes into more detail about the “journal.”

I did not need to show that Anthony Watts was skeptical because that wasn’t the point. The point was that it was funny that he was looking at this claim at all. But, fine, if he really needs me to include the snippet where he expresses his laughable skepticism, I can do that. Here, Watts says.

This looks to be a huge story, the first evidence of extraterrestrial life, if it holds up.

… thus indicating skepticism. I’m sorry I did not include that sentence in the … wait, wait, hold on a sec. Hey, I DID include that phase about “if it holds up” in the original post? But Watts is saying that I did not include any of his skeptical language. Who is this Anthony Watts guy, some kind of liar? Huh.

Maybe he means this bit, the bit after the phrase “Look at what the electron microscope shows of a sample purported to be from the meteorite:” … that’s where he says I cut off the post, let’s see what he says there. Of the claim of Alien Life stuck to a meteorite, Anthony Watts says

It looks convincing, and the paper says: “Contamination is excluded by the circumstance that the elemental abundances within the structures match closely with those of the surrounding matrix.“, but I remain skeptical of the claim.

I’m sure most of my regular readers will see why this is really funny. I didn’t really cherry pick Watts. I showed how he posted on this claim of alien life stuck to a meteorite, and I did not claim that he had been taken in and I said nothing about his skepticism one way or another. But, Watts is a minor leader in the Science-Denialist movement focusing on climate change, and you all know that those folks life to cherry pick.

Does cherry picking really bother Anthony Watts this much, and his readers, who have commented heavily on my post? If so, then they should stop doing it themselves!

Watts complains that I don’t provide a link to the original story. It is against my blog policy to provide links to science denialist sites. It would be unethical for me to do that on a regular basis because it would enhance the google juice of pseudoscience. I’ve got children. I want them to grow up in a better world, not the world that Anthony Watts wants them to grow up in. So, no. Now and then, if necessary, I’ll link, but normally not.

Then he goes on and on with a really boring post, but there are two comments in that post I’ll address briefly.

First, he complains about spelling. I know, I suk as speling. But it isn’t just that. I have a disorder that causes this. I am disabled. When Anthony Watts make fun of my spelling he is being an “Abelist” (or is it Ableist? Whatever). Nice guy. But that’s OK, many people are unaware that such a condition exists. I’ve gotten used to the thoughtless comments about that, even from friends, and I do appreciate having the spelling errors pointed out.

Second, Anthony Watts says, “The difference between myself and Mr. Laden is that WUWT isn’t afraid to have topics for discussion that might be proven wrong.” That’s not true. At the moment, I’m getting ready for publication on this blog a post about the highly controversial yet very interesting Ozone Theory of tree death and, believe it or not, a post about Aquatic Ape Theory from one of the main proponents of that theory. Recently, I was ruthlessly attacked for my position on the Flores (Hobbit) hominids, and I’ve invited the author of that attack to give me a guest post. He’s not gotten back to me on that, but a third colleague who has an opinion that might be very different the one I expressed has agreed to do so. These should all be interesting posts! And, these are all examples of me engendering discussion of topics where my previously stated position may be proven wrong. This is science we’re doing here. Being proved wrong is one of our main objectives.

(The Ozone and Aquatic Ape posts are delayed by sickness in my family, which has taken a few days out of my schedule and caused me to spel even werse!)

One last item, about meteorites with life on them. There is actually no reason to believe that a meteor or two having fossil or isotopic evidence that conforms to would call life could land on us from Mars. There are all sorts of problems with such data, and it is good that we have Robots on Mars checking things out there more directly. But the sample in question may not even be a meteorite, and yes, anyone in the climate sciences who has the remotest clue about anything should recognize what a FW diatom looks like, not necessarily to identify it to genus or species, but sufficiently to be suspicious. This meteorite, the one Anthony Watts laughingly accepts as something to be “skeptical” about, is not the same thing at all. Not even close. In fact, it might not even be a meteorite, according to Phil.