Meteorite Men | Brenham, Kansas | Full HD Episodes

i'm jeff and i'm steve we're out here looking for something that's been buried for thousands of years we can't tell you where we are but we can tell you that we're the meteorite man blazing across the night sky they arrive without warning visitors from other worlds who've traveled millions of miles and now lie buried waiting to be discovered [Music] steve arnold and jeff notkin are driven by a single obsession to unearth these alien visitors they are meteorite hunters what could be more mysterious and exciting than looking for lost bits of the universe that have landed on earth it's a monster their quest takes them around the world searching for rocks from deep space that hold answers to our biggest questions they are the oldest record of the very beginnings of our solar system their mission is part science this might have ceded life on our planet part treasure hunting a lot of meteorites are worth more than gold complete with ancient maps secret sites and something never seen before these meteorites are packed with gemstones from outer space you're wearing a part of creation around your neck when you're wearing this because this is the interior of a planet wow it's just another day's adventure for the meteorite men this is looking quite big steve arnold and jeff notkin are modern-day treasure hunters their typical morning begins like most of ours with a commute but today their commute will take them deep into the heartland of america on a quest for the ultimate buried treasure meteorites that date back to the origins of our solar system i became a meteorite hunter by accident i was actually doing some research on how to do treasure hunting and i ran across a newspaper story from 1890 where this lady had found a meteorite and had sold it to the chancellor of the university of kansas and i went wow meteorites were worth money over 100 years ago i wonder if they're worth money today steve poured through public records and found old maps of meteorite finds all of a sudden i had these maps and they were like real treasure maps first one the clues on those maps led steve to some major meteorite discoveries that were soon in demand with collectors and scientists [Laughter] then in 2005 while searching in a wheat field in the middle of kansas steve unearthed the record-setting 1430 pounder the media dubbed it the million-dollar rock it was like oh my god this is the day my life has just changed steve's meteorite hunting partner is jeff notkin jeff got hooked on outer space as a child in london i got permission from my parents to skip school and stay home and watch the apollo moon landings on television it's one small step for man i was probably six or seven and my mother took me to the geological museum in london there's this dark moody ominous room and it's full of meteorites i was just stunned i mean these things were actually from out there these weren't rocks from earth these were visitors from space and they let me put my hands on these meteorites and it was chilling and from that moment on i was bitten and i never recovered from that bite steve and jeff met in 1997 on a meteorite hunting expedition in chile they've been hunting as a team ever since although they've traveled the world together and share the same birthday the similarities end there i grew up a football star in kansas and he's a punk rock star in in london steve's conservative he is very liberal jeff's a neat freak some would say i'm sloppy i am a vegetarian and i'm a strict carnivore the thing we have in common is we love getting out into the wild places and digging for space rocks today jeff and steve are heading for brenham kansas where several thousand years ago a large meteorite had the same destination [Music] their goal is to find remnants of that ancient rock well look at what the wind blew in how do you know it was a tornado actually yeah i saw dorothy on my way and she's in toto see i didn't see the dogs pieces of the brenham meteorite have been unearthed in these fields for more than a century it was thought that everything had been recovered that is until steve found his record-setting rock here everyone thought there can't possibly be any more meteorites there because people have been hunting since the 1880s there probably isn't even a pea-sized piece left that's what everyone thought except steve he just rocked the meteorite world the biggest brenham ever found inspired by the big find steve and jeff believe that some of the largest pieces of the meteorite are still deep underground beyond the scope of traditional detection equipment we're ready to find some rocks all right let's go let's go i want to see so they've come with an arsenal of tools because most meteorites have a high iron content metal detectors are essential steven jeff brings several this is one of my favorite metal detectors it doesn't have a very big range but it's really good for finding smaller targets or for pinpointing larger targets when you're close to them all metal detectors work on the same basic principle a signal is sent through a coil and broadcast into the ground as an electromagnetic field encountering metallic objects alters that field and that change in frequency is heard on a speaker there's our signal that little beat tells us we found a metallic object unfortunately by the time i get up to here a couple of feet away can't see the target anymore this detector you'll notice the coil is really big and this allows us to go even deeper but for meteorites even deeper underground you need a detector with an even bigger coil this is what we call the one meter coil may look completely different from the other detectors but basically it's the same thing here's the control box sends a signal down this wire and here's the coil that sends our electromagnetic pulse down into the ground looking for targets this piece of equipment will find a meteorite five six seven eight feet underground if it's a large target we love it but steve and jeff need to think even bigger so steve designed the ultimate meteorite hunting weapon this is probably kind of how the wright brothers assembled their first airplane okay flip this over you don't go to your favorite mega store and go to the meteorite hunting aisle and and find the stuff you need to hunt how do these things get so tangled up on their own to search large areas steve envisioned a giant metal detector that could be pulled by a truck or an atv if you want to find the big stuff you got to go big his solution was a sled made of pvc pipe big enough to carry a metal detecting coil 50 feet long oh yeah don't forget the flag can we put a small english flag up there as well because there can't be any metal near the coil plastic zip ties and duct tape are used to fasten it to the sled over the back fully assembled the detector measures 126 square feet and can detect meteorites 10 to 20 feet deep i feel like uh charlton heston and ben hur in the old days hunters would walk a field like this using the little handheld detectors it's hundreds of acres you could spend your whole life doing it with this unit that steve designed himself we can cover a huge area like this in a couple of days but even with the best equipment knowing where to search for the hidden rocks comes down to understanding just how the meteorite first made its entry into our atmosphere now when an asteroid comes into the earth's atmosphere it usually will break up the the the force on the masses is tremendous it breaks up into multiple pieces so the rock will come in and as it comes in the the smaller pieces start to drop off but the larger pieces with more inertia will go further the landing zone is called a strewn field because the meteorites are literally strewn along a path by the disintegrating meteor at brenham that path spreads out over nine square miles in this particular place we have 125 years of documented meteorite recoveries and so what we do is go back into the old records and find out well where other pieces have been found so we put all that intelligence together into a map the yellow is the approximate boundary of the strewn field and the red stars are some of the meteorites that have been found the biggest star right here is the largest brennan meteorite which was found by steve a couple of years ago in that field just over there so we're really close their hutch is that other massive pieces followed the same trajectory as steve's large find so their search today begins in a sprawling field adjacent to that area but the odds are still stacked against them they're trying to find rocks that traveled millions of miles and have been buried for thousands of years somewhere under nine square miles of farmland [Music] you have to be prepared to really put in a lot of time if you want to be a meteorite hunter it's not the kind of thing where you can say gee i'm gonna go out and find a meteorite and find one on your first day it's just not gonna happen we've gone out in the field sometimes for weeks at a time 10 hours a day five days we don't find anything but today just a few hours into the search the huge detector picks up a strong signal which could be the beacon of a meteorite buried deep beneath the surface right here jeff i think there we go using the one meter coil they zero in on their target oh i like the sound of that it's a pretty good-sized target really encouraging really strong okay right there the target is right in the sweet spot of the strewn field not far from where steve found the 1400 pounder just down there is is where you found the monster almost perfectly aligned right right in the middle of the big it sounds deep i wanted to get by hand yeah yeah you start digging i'm calling the backhoe all right okay dan we we did an exact pinpoint that flag's right on top of it dan woods a brenham local has been helping steve dig for meteorites for years dan is as good as it gets on the backhoe there's nobody i'd trust more to get a rock out of the hole than dan there you go sitting down here where it could be 1500 2 000 pounds who knows who knows if steve's prediction is right they could be sitting on the biggest brenham find ever they carefully dig trenches on both sides of the target and use the small detectors to pinpoint its exact location [Music] i'm getting it but it's stronger on that side and that side's deeper so probably still further down okay [Music] yeah the deeper the target is the bigger it has to be in order for our detectors to see it so the anticipation's building there dan go ahead and a little more if you bump into something stop okay okay keep going i don't see anything yet getting down to the clay that's a good sign there's a certain point below which you're almost guaranteed to have something because man-made materials debris farm implements cast off bits of junk tends to be in about the top three feet so when you start to get down into that dense clay layer there's not going to be anything human made down there unless it was purposefully buried and that's pretty unlikely in the middle of a field in kansas there's something in there oh oh what is it that doesn't look very encouraging no it doesn't let let's take a little bit off of here and dan let's go slowly right here on the top looks like more of the same what the hell is that it looks like a 55-gallon drum oh look at a barrel inside a barrel how lucky could we get two barrels in one hole it's a double media rung in the meteorart world we have what are called meteorites and then what we affectionately call meteor wrongs now meteoron could be just a black rock it can be an old horseshoe or a pair of pliers or it's amazing the different things that are are found out in the field look at that that comes with the territory you got to find where they're not to make sure you've really covered all the places that they could be that was a really good signal and it's sitting in a spot where it could have been a monster and uh um it could have been a ton or more and uh and it wasn't what can we get for that on ebay oh well all in a day's work we know another spot where there's not a meteorite i get sick of saying that steve and jeff redouble their efforts they're still convinced that these fields contain undiscovered pieces of the famous brennam meteorite that broke up as it entered the atmosphere several thousand years ago but despite the common image of the burning meteorite crashing to earth the reality is far different contrary to popular belief meteorites are not burning hot when they hit the earth people that have been lucky enough to get there shortly after the fall and touch it or pick it up report that they're either cold or slightly warm to the touch what we see as a fireball is still miles above the earth most meteorites burn out well before they make impact [Music] although they may hit our atmosphere at many thousands of miles per hour most meteorites don't make craters atmospheric braking slows them down a typical meteorite might hit the surface of the earth at a few hundred miles per hour same speed as a golf ball two more hours of searching and still nothing suddenly the metal detector is triggered to life it's another signal even stronger than the last one less than a mile from where they uncovered the barrel [Music] we're getting a longer signal this way than this yeah backhoe all right i'm not guessing this time yeah it doesn't seem to pay when we guess it doesn't end up in traffic it just embarrasses [Music] by pointing the detector down in the corner we see that it's still probably deeper and the signal it's a lot louder on this side so we're probably we're a little the target's a little closer to that you're good deeper's always good the further underground we go the older the layers are and so it's time travel 250 years ago there wouldn't have been anyone out here that knew how to work iron and steel so once we get below that time period there's nothing human anymore the only things down there may be extraterrestrial oh wow right here okay let's jump in the hole with the shovels dig it out by hand yeah we're getting we're getting we're getting close i'm going to knock the top off oh oh oh oh oh what's happened is we've just hit this little pocket and that they it looks like there's some little crystals in there so we could have just encountered the outer corroded layer of a meteorite so we're taking it real easy [Music] there it is oh yeah the magnet's sticking it's sticking right through the ground these meteorites contain a great deal of iron so when we get right on top of the target we'll we'll put a very powerful rare earth magnet down in there to see if we can connect with the surface reaching into that hole and scraping that dirt off the first time and seeing that little bit sticking up out of the dirt and knowing that it's from outer space it's just shocking every time i still get chills i go wow it really is it's not a pipe or a horseshoe or a plow blade it's the real thing oh wow it's a nice rounded shape this is looking quite big it looks like the the metal is rusted into the soil well look at that the outer layer of this this meteorite's corroded and pieces are just flaking right off looks like there's a crystal in it oh that crystal indicates that this is a palacite an extremely rare type of meteorite a palestine is a stony iron meteorite that's made up of roughly equal parts of iron nickel and olivine also known as the gemstone peridot it's pretty substantial pallasites originated several billion years ago when the core of an asteroid or planet was molten iron and nickel it's on the outside edge of that cork where pallisites form their unique mixture of elements if you cut them thin uh they'll become translucent you can hold them up and and light will come through and it's like a cosmic stained glass window the light shines through and you see these crystals these gorgeous glorious brilliantly colored crystals think of it like chocolate chip chocolate chips being mixed into cookie dough in some areas you have higher concentration of chocolate chips in others you may not get any and so the crystals are like the chocolate chips the cosmic the cosmic cookie so the way the cookie crumbled sometimes they're they're all solid iron in in an area that the crystals just didn't get assimilated or distributed in the formation and and then others are more evenly and so we're seeing some crystals but we're also seeing some some oxidation how am i oh jack look at it look at it it's a monster this amazing bit of some planet that's billions of years old that burned in our atmosphere and fell in the mud and sat there for thousands of years and nobody knew that was there it's too heavy to lift and that's really good news we find it we pull it out it's something you don't forget it's an amazing moment wow that is a chunk not only has it uh been reintroduced to sunlight but we are the first humans ever to see this visitor from outer space at 230 pounds this palace site ranks in the top one percent of all meteorite finds in the world it's kind of a special moment for us and proves that steve and jeff's hunch was right about there being more meteorites in the brenham strewn field they're now convinced that there are even more treasures to uncover here and they're determined to get to them first [Music] kansas is a meteorite hunter's mecca with 140 documented meteorite falls more per square mile than any other place in the u.s although scientists don't know why so many meteorites end up in kansas they have a pretty good idea of where they started their journey most specialists agree that most or all meteorites were once part of the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter in our own solar system so a large planet or asteroid breaks apart for whatever reason perhaps it collided with another one things crash into each other up there on the asteroid belt all the time apparently there are billions of pieces of cosmic debris wandering around up there in space and every now and then our planet bumps into one of them [Music] the meteorite fall in brenham has been heavily searched for decades but steve and jeff still believe the area is rich with potential meteorites if you know where to look steve and jeff know where to look but they still have to cover hundreds of acres how do they keep track of where they've been their secret is industrial strength gps when i cover acres and acres of ground i want to make sure i get every square inch covered what i found out was farmers have already done this they've used gps technology to direct their tractors i've adapted this technology for hunting for meteorites a car gps might get you within a couple hundred feet this is going to get us within a couple of inches i'll set it with a path on here and then i follow it and then it tells me to turn around and within inches i can come back the other direction this screen will give me an arrow that will point me in the direction i need to go when i get really close i have red lights up on the bar that will tell me when i'm too far off if i'm centered perfectly i get three good green lights up there so i could be a little bit blurry on on this but still focusing on where i'm going and it keeps me on track this enables me to make sure i get every bit of it covered we get a little more specific with these smaller handheld units to exactly pinpoint the find so it helps us go back locate it dig it up but more than that it helps us compile very accurate strewn field data because we can then take the latitude and longitude and our altitude and all of that information helps us compile the most accurate stream field map that we can after searching 30 more acres they encounter another strong target we'll get the tractor in go dion [Music] it's a few minutes ago this detector got nothing now we've got a solid target there so we're we're getting closer farmer denny ross keeps a close eye on the dig his family owns the land and steve approached him for permission to search he drew up a contract and we split the share of one if he sold one found it so oh just hit something pretty big i think that was it okay let's get a shovel right there oh look around to their amazement it looks like another meteorite wow we've just exposed a tiny bit of it and what always makes us really happy is when the magnet sticks look how deep it is wow yeah that's one of the really great moments when you uncover a little bit of it you go oh yeah it really is a meteorite then you uncover a bit more and then some mud falls off and you go oh wow it's actually that big we got a big one one two three at 273 pounds this find is even larger than the first two for three that's not bad huts actually in this game both are in the top one percent of all meteorite discoveries in the world this is the land of the giants and it's almost like going on a safari at jurassic park it's just this is about as good as it can get agreed the uh the only thing i'm a little concerned about is how we're going to get it out of the field yeah no kidding the odds of finding two meteorites this large on one expedition is like winning the lottery twice each rock could bring in 100 000 or more the next destination for these rocks will most likely be a private collection museum or research facility in fact the scientists who study meteorites rely on hunters like stephen jeff to provide samples we donate a piece of every new specimen that's found to science and they're able to get a lot of information they're able to classify the rock as to what type it is it benefits everybody because they get a sample a specimen to work with and we get the benefit of their expertise of their knowledge so with more than 500 pounds of meteorites in the back seat steve and jeff take to the highway [Music] their 1 000 mile journey ends at arizona state university home of one of the top meteorite studies programs in the nation before entering the research center they give their space rocks a good cleaning and remove a sample slice to be used for testing lawrence garvey the manager of the school's meteorite collection takes the sample and preps it to be analyzed we're just going to do a very rough polish asu's i-beam lab has a particle accelerator it's one of the few instruments that can quickly determine if steve and jeff's find is extraterrestrial or just an ordinary rock from kansas okay let's start a spectrum right here it does it by firing a beam of protons into a solid target based on the energy released by the collision scientists can determine the exact composition of the rock atom by atom they are looking for an abundance of nickel and iron a mix rarely found in rocks on earth in less than 10 seconds and i can already see the nipple peak these two peaks right here the two big peaks right next to it are iron and not much else to look at so this this metallic part is quite pure the analysis clearly shows that the dominant element is iron with a significant presence of 8 to 15 percent nickel overwhelming evidence that this rock is not from our planet we see that nickel peak to begin to show up we know we're onto something because nickels is the tell for us that's a real classic meteorite spectrum that's what i like to hear the classic meteorite spectrum tests also confirmed that the pieces steve and jeff found were part of the historic brenham meteorite we analyzed their piece and we compared it with a piece of brennam that we have in our collection and they matched up in terms of the content of nickel and these samples professor manok shiwadwa who directs the asu meteorite studies program is an analytical geochemist i want you to guess which one of these is a meteorite and which one's a meteoron my work focuses on trying to understand when the planets are forming and how the planets are forming and you can do that by studying meteorites because they are the oldest record that we have of the very beginnings of our solar system in fact asu has a collection that includes meteorites that were formed even before our solar system these were probably the very first solids to form four and a half billion years ago they even contain particles that actually formed around other stars before our sun was even formed they're basically stardust in your hand you're holding the oldest matter that anyone on our planet could possibly touch with their hand exactly four and a half billion years old and older looks great for its age yes quite well these rocks basically have a story to tell and as we improve our analytical techniques there'll be more things that we can learn from them tucked away in a drawer is one of the rarest meteorites in the university's collection a small rock that scientists hope will answer some big questions the famous merchant does it really smell it does you want to smell it wow it's the smell of outer space it's actually got a lot of organic materials in it the merchants in meteorite is classified as a carbonaceous chondrite a type of stony meteorite containing the organic element carbon they are the most primitive and unaltered type of meteorite known yeah it's still got something good so i got something dirt on it scientists believe this ancient rock may hold answers to the mystery of how life on earth began certain types of meteorites like the carbonaceous chondrite most likely did bring the organic materials from which life could have gotten started on our own planet so we're looking at one of our ancestors there possibly well you know well the wrong way the raw material yeah i wonder we're so into meteorites we're descended from them well maybe you are today they're heading back out to the field to a site they simply call alpha they're keeping the exact location under wraps because they believe there are meteorites here that contain something rare and extremely valuable turn off the cameras before filming is allowed in the site the camera crew must sign confidentiality agreements promising not to reveal the location welcome to what we call the alpha site this is one of our favorite meteorite hunting grounds come on steve let's go find some meteorites like brenham the alpha site is a location where meteorites have been found in the past but unlike brenham which had been searched heavily there are very few documented finds at alpha in fact there was no existing stroonfield map to give them an idea of how far the fall extended so they had to make their own in essence they are hunting in virgin territory we're looking at about what seven miles now yeah maybe a little more the exact location where we are today is right on the center line of the strewn field is not an actual existing landmark but it is a theoretical line that steve plotted through the known area containing all meteorite finds from this fall [Music] but there's never a guarantee and here at alpha it's even more of a shot in the dark because of the limited historical records steve it's really loud it sounds near the surface please scratch around make sure make sure it's something right or something wrong okay that'll post or something what'd you find i didn't even know whoa i've got something over here i bet it's just a piece of old farm equipment you know babe ruth was the home run king but he was also the strikeout king and so you have to be willing to strike out a lot well hey you add that to the collection who knows it's kind of cool actually certainly didn't you say this was the best bit of the strewn field jeff if it was easy everyone would be doing it we got a monster target here i think you're right like forrest gump's mom said need right hunting's like a box of chocolates you never know what you're gonna get it can't be terribly deep or or it wouldn't have [Laughter] that's not immediate right wow what a signal it's an iron snake look at the size of that chain you could tie the queen mary down with that oh we really thought we had one there toss that in the back of the truck and see what else we can come up with hopefully something a little older than this watch that there's some really big boulders sticking out at the side they'll make toast out of the detector i'm sure you've seen them but just take it easy roger that not that you're scared of a few boulders or anything like that [Music] we hardly ever seem to have a whole day where something doesn't go wrong and when the giant metal detector goes down it brings the search to a halt you broke it again by driving too fast sometimes it'll just be a minor thing we might break one of the struts or a small piece fall off that's easy to fix but when one of the big struts breaks it can be a real pain in the neck it's a never-ending process this one's cracked as well the more it breaks the more a gargantuan assembly it becomes grab a couple paper towels set that down now go back there okay hold that there i think steve likes to think of me as his butler hold that jeff can you clean this jeff can you hand me that saw jeff can you hold this pipe so it's not exactly what you'd call high-tech work but uh the perks are very good steve's track is one of the messiest things i've ever seen it's a kind of collection of random garbage this your filing cabinet back here rusty old tools bits of clothing steve i've never seen so much garbage in one truck it's just all thrown haphazardly in there together and then he goes find the monkey wrench in the back it's like going through a garbage dump trying to find something have you ever thought of keeping all your tools in one box oh like your toolbox disgusting you just have to know where to look after losing several hours steve and jeff are back on the hunt hey jeff that one sounded strong check it this smaller unit has a very limited range and the fact that i'm getting a loud signal means that it's either a very big target or it's something really close to the surface or possibly both see what we've got here the few documented meteorite finds at alpha were buried closer to the surface so steve and jeff have foregone the backhoe here shovels and sweat should be all they need to uncover a target it's possible that the meteorite fall at alpha is more recent than the one at brennam so there has been less time for soil to build up oh oh that's something yeah i don't want to hit it hard oh [Music] wow is it oh yeah oh yeah that looks really good dude finally look at that that's potentially a nice shape [Music] how long have you been waiting this rock has come from so far and has been sitting there so long i haven't been hunting nearly as long as this guy's been traveling to get to me oh wow look at that the latest visitor from outer space to be discovered in the earth at 33 pounds this meteorite is considerably smaller than the finds at brenham but the minute they pulled it out of the ground steve and jeff saw something in the rock that could be far more valuable this meteorite contains something we've never seen in a meteorite here's our newest find and as he's a bit of a vip he gets to ride up front with me place of honor [Music] but as they head out to examine their latest find they hit another strong signal whoa that was something [Music] you grabbed two detectors and no shovels what can i tell you i'm a gearhead finding two of the rare alpha rocks in one day is extremely unlikely but steve and jeff still check out every signal it's sticking time again even after all these years not for one minute does it become humdrum it's like thinking through tarmac man this is hard so much for shallow targets let's keep digging [Music] i never go oh do we have to dig up another meteorite how tiresome this could be an extraterrestrial visitor down here wrestling's not allowed to go anywhere and even find one tiny meteorite is a great achievement yeah there's definitely something down there space is huge those fragments of debris from the asteroid belt could have gone anywhere away from earth into the sun a million billion possibilities a piece encounters the earth's atmosphere it doesn't melt burn up completely it falls to earth it doesn't fall in the ocean it doesn't fall in the arctic or in the rainforests it actually lands somewhere where we might one day find it it's definitely sticking to a magnet wow it looks like a corner of a meteorite i don't think it's a meteor wrong we have overcome literally astronomical odds to find one we may need to dig a fairly large hole to get this guy out exhausted but exhilarated they're now in a flat out race to dig it out before the sun sets there's a nice little corner exposed we might be able to lever it up for that oh it's moving a little bit that was a super humidity look it's kind of wedge feet whoa that looks like a spaceship it is a monster look at that what a privilege it is to be the first humans ever to see this amazing thing that traveled millions of miles to see us to be here not only a visitor from outer space but a very substantial one at 109 pounds this find is more than three times the size of the first alpha rock and upon closer examination steve and jeff are even more excited about the meteorites they've uncovered here it's just covered in all these little indentations it's so unusual but it's what's inside those indentations that sets the alpha meteorites apart it is packed with olivine crystals the mineral olivine named for its olive green color is commonly found on earth in gem form it's known as peridot the august birthstone but meteorites containing olivine are extremely rare and what makes steve and jeff's find so amazing is that much of the olivine has made the tumultuous journey to earth without shattering for example the brenum meteorite if you look at a slice of brennam all the crystals are shattered in it but the crystals in the alpha meteorites are remarkably clear and unbroken for steve and jeff that means that the rocks they've been finding at alpha may soon be coveted by more than just scientists and collectors [Music] what's exciting is that we're finding quite a few of these crystals are gem quality and so we are able to facet gemstones out of them steve sent one of the faceted stones to gemologist john coyvala an expert on peridot from meteorites it's the only extraterrestrial gem we have a good portion of the asteroid belt consists of rocks basically and then a few have the olivine grains so it's a it's it's a rarity to begin with right in the asteroid belt and how many of them are going to actually hit the earth not many so when one does hit it's a rare occurrence in the world of gems rare equals pricey peridot found on earth goes for about sixty dollars a carrot while peridot from meteorites sells for more than one thousand dollars a carrot this is one of steve arnold's stones actually this is very big for a extraterrestrial peridot and it's very nice so basically you're wearing a part of creation around your neck when you're wearing this because this is the interior of a planet that's what it is it's a piece of an interior of a planet when you think about it these meteorites are literally packed with gemstones from outer space so how can the gia tell if a gemstone is from outer space or from right here on earth experts like koivula can look for microscopic details inside the gems inclusions you find in the extraterrestrial peridot are shock remnants and they form along structural planes this is multiple cleavages and terrestrial peridot inclusions have a distinctly different look under the microscope this is a relatively common inclusion in a terrestrial peridot one from planet earth but what if the source of peridot can't be distinguished by looking under a microscope then we would rely on the chemical profiles created by the mass spectrometer a mass spectrometer works by placing a sample in an airtight chamber and a laser vaporizes small bits of the sample the flashing circle of light is the laser firing the vaporized material is then fed into a plasma torch a jet of gas as hot as the surface of the sun the mass spectrometer sorts out the basic chemical elements and creates a fingerprint that is unique for extraterrestrial gemstones like peridot what's even more amazing is the discovery made by accident the alpha stones when cut and polished display chatoyance the mysterious light within the stone similar to light reflecting in a cat's eye chatoyance has never been seen in a meteorite before steve's and jeff's discovery opens up a new scientific question of why this effect has only appeared in the alpha stones a question that may help unlock some of the many mysteries carried to earth by these extraterrestrial visitors the meteorite men are a new breed of space explorer seeking out hidden traces of our cosmic past buried deep beneath the surface of our planet and their quest is just beginning there are big meteorites out there waiting to be found there are meteorites out there that probably landed yesterday that no one's seen and there are meteorites out there that landed a thousand years ago that nobody's seen come on steve let's go find some meteorites let's go we as humans are fascinated by mysteries particularly the really big mysteries like what is our place in the universe meteorites tell us something about the very deep past four and a half billion years ago when our solar system was just forming it's kind of this unending quest of of chasing down knowledge but more than that it's a chance for us to hold in our hand a little bit of the substance of space that has against all odds found its way to our planet hey jeff sounds like we got something here

Channel: Meteorite Men

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Keywords: space rocks, science tv shows, meteorite men tv show, factual tv, scientific tv series, meteorite men season 1, meteorite men series, meteorites documentary, meteorite men, meteorites, meteorite men full episode, science channel tv shows, science channel

Id: 8fbGNkkeY5E

Length: 47min 30sec (2850 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2020