> I probably should've posted this a little earlier, but there's still time to see it. Anyway, if you didn't know, the Perseid meteor shower has been going on for the past few days and if you're at all interested in this kind of thing you should definately take a look outside tonight. I found a page with all the information you need, so enjoy it while it's still happening.


Hi there. Here's something cool to do, that I've been wanting to try for years: Collect micrometeorites from rainwater. By poetic license, it's like collecting "stardust from a passing comet". :) Since Montreal has been raining rats and frogs lately, I finally remembered and put a large glass bowl in my backyard to catch the rain.

Collection is supposed to be fairly simple to do. You need a large container like a heavy bowl or bucket, and a strong magnet such as a horseshoe magnet (and optionally: cheesecloth, thin smooth white cardboard, and a powerful microscope or loupe at least 50-100x). You put the bucket outside around the duration of a meteor shower. Put it somewhere flat and level where it won't get disturbed, like somewhere on the roof. If you're doing it properly, place multiple layers of gauze cheesecloth in the bottom of the bucket. Let the container fill up with a large amount of rainwater (this might take several weeks).

AT this point, if you're doing it properly: carefully pull up the gauze from the rainbucket and lay it out someplace. Once it is thoroughly dry, shake out any particulate matter onto the piece of white cardboard. Make a tidy little flat pile. Then take the horseshoe magnet and put it under the cardboard immediately beneath your pile. If you now tilt the cardboard gently along with the magnet, all the dust and stoney micrometeorites will slide off the cardboard. Anything left behind sticking to the magnet will be metallic micrometeorite dust, made of iron and nickel. Proper identification requires use of the microscope to examine them -- real micrometeorites are supposed to be rounded with a half-melted look, and have surface pitting.

The Perseids, Leonids, and Geminids showers (and others) come every year with a predictable frequency. Millions of tons of micrometeorites fall towards the earth during the showers. Most of them burn up, but there's a lot that gets through. Each of these meteorite dust particles dates back to the creation of the Solar System itself! Cool. Moreover, the meteor shower is caused by the Earth itself moving through the giant tail end of a comet. That vast prospectus is a most awesome and humbling thought. :)

Wolfie