Researchers in the University of Wisconsin-Madison are making a plea for anyone finding pieces of the meteorite that blazed through the skies of southern Wisconsin Thursday night to bring them to the department for possible analysis.
“There are all sorts of things that might be learned from fresh material and it is time sensitive,” said geochemist John Valley in a press release. Valley said short-lived radioactive elements are often formed when meteorites fall through the Earth’s atmosphere.
UW-Madison’s Department of Geoscience boasts some of the world’s most sensitive analytical equipment for studying such material, according to Valley, who notes that there are only about a dozen known meteorites from Wisconsin.
“Until we look at samples and are able to take some measurements, we won’t know what kind of meteorite it is,” said Noriko Kita, an expert on meteorites and director of the department’s Ion Microprobe Laboratory.
Pieces of the meteorite can be brought to the UW Geology Museum in Madison. Additional information about meteorites can be found on the museum’s webpage.