A Fireball Left Meteorites Around Mississippi That You Can Hunt for on the Roadside

Initially, NASA Meteor Watch thought the flaming meteor was traveling at 55,000 miles per hour, making sense that fewer eye-witnesses saw it. However, since NASA announced that the meteor’s speed was traveling at almost half that, eyewitness accounts had doubled.

When meteors land, if a piece of it lands on your property, the law says it belongs to you. But there were still plenty of other pieces to find. Linda Welzenbach-Fries, a planetary scientist and science writer for Rice University, claims to have found the first pieces of the meteor. According to Inverse, the scientist, along with her husband Marc Fries, a planetary scientist for NASA, drove five and a half hours from their home in Texas to find the space rocks. They found some along a road in Natchez. And they weren’t the only ones.

Meteorites still being found daily in Mississippi! These pieces were found by a landowner, Sonny Clary and Lorren Miller. Visit our website for free search maps: https://t.co/uspPS1Iq8c pic.twitter.com/gcppQjUsb2

— Strewnify (@strewnify) May 7, 2022

On its Facebook page, NASA Meteor Watch asked anyone who found the rocks to consult the Washington University in St. Louis’ self-check list to determine whether the rocks people were finding were meteorites.

“We are not meteorite people, as our main focus is protecting spacecraft and astronauts from meteoroids. So we will be unable to identify any strange rocks you may find – please do not send us rock photos, as we will not respond,” the post says.

Wouldn’t it be cool to find a piece of outer space in your backyard?