PORT ANGELES — Searching for meteorites as an armchair scientist will the topic of a talk planned at 6 p.m. Thursday.
Marc D. Fries, a cosmic dust curator at Johnson Space Center, will present “How to find meteorite falls with a laptop computer and a desk: scientific exploration in the age of open data” in room M125 of Keegan Hall, the M building at Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
The lecture — hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Peninsula College — will be free.
On average, there is a meteorite fall somewhere on Earth once a day.
Most of these are either small events or they occur over water, however, the number of falls is large enough to recover meteorites from 12 to 24 events per year.
The number of meteorite falls that are recovered is steadily climbing, and citizen scientists now have unprecedented capability to find falls using publicly-available data sources such as eyewitness accounts, weather radar, seismometers, lightning detectors and other freely available sources, according to a news release.
Fries will discuss meteorite falls — why they are scientifically important, how they occur and where and when they happen, said the news release.
The talk also will feature the large meteorite fall into the waters of Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off Washington’s Pacific coast on March 7, and the Ocean Exploration Trust expedition that plans to search for meteorites on the seafloor using underwater robots.
This event is part of the Peninsula College STEM Club’s monthly STEMinar Science Lecture Series.
