HARLEM, GA, March 27, 2009 — According to an e-mail from meteorite hunter Darryl Pitt, meteorite hunters are in the CSRA looking for the supposed meteorite that cause last Friday morning's loud boom. They believe the meteorite came to rest in the Augusta area.
Atlanta businessman, Dave Gheesling, purportedly the owner of the largest meteorite collection in the Southeast (FallingRocks.com is hot on the trail and is confident a meteorite will be found in a matter of days. Darryl Pitt, of the Macovich Collection, in New York City, reportedly the largest collection of aesthetic meteorites in the world, is now in the CSRA as a result of Gheesling’s efforts.
Gheesling is now offering $20,000 for the first first one kilo (2.2 pound) specimen recovered.
More than 80 people witnessed the fireball who logged in their sightings on AMSMeteorites.com. In addition, a scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Marc Fries, picked up the meteorite’s debris cloud using Doppler radar, data that Gheesling has incorporated into his recovery efforts.
Following the Columbia space shuttle tragedy, Fries noted that disintegrated pieces of the shuttle were picked up by Doppler returns. He then reasoned that a meteorite shower should also be picked up by Doppler, and had to wait years until a recent Texan meteorite shower proved his hypothesis. The Georgia Fireball is only the second time that Doppler radar provided evidence of a meteorite fall.
“We’ve narrowed down the search area,” said Gheesling. “We just need the public’s help.”
“Two days ago, for the first time ever, meteorite specimens were found from a small asteroid that was tracked before colliding with Earth and coming to rest in the Sudan, but the lead scientist had more than 100 students help in the search.”
As fireball observations go, this one was huge, and a huge reward awaits a lucky CSRA resident.
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