Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from ...

METEORS, METEOROIDS, AND METEORITES, OH MY! 141
mining operations. Based on spectroscopic observations of meteorites
and asteroids, Lewis estimates that an asteroid 500 meters
across would be worth about $4 trillion in cobalt, nickel, iron, and
platinum. The metal is pure and in its raw form, making mining
relatively easy, and the profit from such a venture would be more
than enough to pay off any initial investment. And that’s a small
asteroid. Bigger ones abound.
Science fiction author Larry Niven once commented that the
reason the dinosaurs became extinct is that they didn’t have a space
program. We do, and if we have enough ambition and enough
reach, we can turn these potential weapons of extinction into a literal
gold mine for humanity.
PPP
Until then, we don’t have too many options. Maybe we can divert
the big one when the time comes, but for now all we can do is
imagine what an impact might be like. Unfortunately, movies have
had their own impact. Anytime an unexplained phenomenon involves
something falling from the sky, meteors are usually blamed.
Which brings us back to the Ayoubs, still searching for a meteorite
in their backyard in Salisbury, New Hampshire. Initially, this
night visitor sure did sound like the usual description of a meteorite.
But my knowledge of their behavior was telling me otherwise.
As I said, meteorites won’t cause fires unless they are very
big. But other things didn’t add up, either. The path was described
as an arc, while a meteor’s trajectory would have been straight
down. Also, no meteorite was ever found, despite a dedicated
search. I mentioned to the property owner that meteorites can be
sold for quite a bit of money, so he had strong incentive to find it.
I never heard of anyone finding anything.
In the end, these events usually have some mundane, terrestrial
cause. I would bet money that it was someone setting off fireworks
in the thick woods near the Ayoubs’ house. This is a guess on my
part, and it may be wrong. We may never know what started those
fires, but we know what it wasn’t. We can blame Hollywood for
our mistaken understanding of meteorites, but we can’t blame
everything else on the poor things themselves.