Looking for meteorites from above

[Turbulent]

hi

i am new in the m-hunting, so please be patient for my unawareness

is there any trace that meteorites leave on the ground when falling you could see from height of 50 m and more? i am not talking about Tunguska meteorite, but smth like 1kg - any kind of crater or stuff.

the idea is to track the sign of fallen meteorite while flying the motorized paraglider or stmh of the kind

thanks for ideas and advises

turbulent

[Caver]

Hi Turbulent,

Welcome to the forum. I'm a newbie here too. Lots of friendly people here will try to help with your questions. I'm new to meteorite hunting, but I've been an amateur astronomer for quite a while. I'll try to answer your question and others here more experienced in hunting can chime in and tell you if I'm full of BS or not... :innocent0009:

The short answer is...I don't think you'll find many recognizable impact features from an ultralight or similar craft...if any at all.

Some of the reasons...

If you'll look at some of the posts here, you'll see that the majority of finds are meteorites marble sized up to golf ball sized or so. Meteorites in the 1Kg range are pretty rare.

Most meteorites don't impact with enough velocity to create a crater. Most meteors break up into smaller pieces high in the atmosphere. By the time they reach the surface, atmospheric drag has slowed them down to terminal velocity, so they impact like they were just dropped from a high altitude.

Any impact feature from something that small will weather to virtual invisibility VERY quickly...sometimes just days or weeks.

Having said that...there are some specific situations an ultralight air vehicle could be useful. That would be searching an area that is basically a featureless plain, such as a desert hardpan, dry lake bed, frozen lake or an ice field, immediately after an observed fall...but those situations are extremely rare! Even there, you're not looking for impact features as much as a rock that looks different than all the others.

It might be possible to see very old impact features from the air from larger objects. But it would take a very knowedgeable person to tell if they were of impact origin. Even the experts can argue over those things.

Hope that answers your question and I didn't get too far off base.

--

Tom

[Turbulent]

2 Caver:

Thanks, Tom, appreciated.

Your answer is pretty in line of what i thought myself, which is depressing

I still hope this or next year taking a couple of weeks vacation flying ultralight and scanning flat scenery of central asia looking for craters

Sometimes hope and spirit beats the logic.

[Goldfinger]

Hi-

If you were paragliding here in the states- I would say your chances of finding meteorites or unknown small impact craters are just about nil. But if you were going to a remote area like the Gobi desert, an area with no vegetation , you might have some luck. No doubt there's plenty of meteorites in an area like that and I don't see why you couldn't be successful. While you may not find any impact craters, you should be able to pick out the larger meteorites from above. :twocents: :twocents:

Steve

[fredmason]

Do some research on the web, I have seen photos of recent impacts...in fact Del took some of his finds in West, Texas...if you have ever fired a shotgun into mud ( don't ask why) you would have an idea of what a recent impact would look like...sounds like an exciting vacation...don't let Yeti and the snow leopards get you...

fred

[Turbulent]

2 Goldfinger: i will try what it gets, for sure

2 Fredmason: the wild places are those inhabited by wild people