Now here is an amazing free source of outer space material. 
I heard of this years ago, and tried it briefly back then, finally trying it again yesterday. We got our first rain in weeks and after reading several nice articles on how to do it, I collected two jar-full samples of the downspout water. (This photo is from Steve Spangler’s blog referenced below).
I used a coffee filter to collect the dust from the water, and dried the filter in our toaster oven (low setting). Then, instead of separating out the iron particles with a magnet, I used two stick-um notes to collect all of the particles. The water was mostly clear because the roof had already been rinsed off before I started collecting. Since a good percentage of the meteorites are nonferrous types, they would be missed by the magnetic method of separating meteorites from earthly particles.
This week I found a wonderful buy on two medical-grade binocular microscopes, making this exercise possible. From my first jar of water, I am pretty sure I found one nice micrometeorite, but it was so tiny, it popped out of view when I approached it with tweezers under the scope, and I wasn’t able to recover it. It looked just like some of the pictures in the links below.
I haven’t searched the 2nd sample yet. I will post the results later.
Here are some of the links I got from Google “collecting micrometeorites”:
- A Meteorite Hit My House! | Steve Spangler’s Blog
- Educator’s Guide to Micrometeorites
- Collecting Micrometeorites.
- Classroom – Collecting Micrometeorites
- Fire in the Sky: Collecting Iron Micrometeorites | Geekdad from Wired.com
Boyd
[...] are the MicroMeteorites? I wrote a year ago or so on this blog about finding micrometeorites in the snow, or in rain, or in just dust falling [...]
By: Where are the MicroMeteorites? « Mysteries So Bright on February 28, 2010
at 6:38 pm
[...] I will let you know if this technique works. I got the idea from one of the references in my original article. [...]
By: Another attempt – micrometeorites « Mysteries So Bright on April 10, 2010
at 9:43 pm
Many, sadly have the impression that the spherical magnetic particles are micrometeorites correction they are not. I have personally analysed 450 samples from most continents, what I am finding is very interesting spheres some are magnetic others not so, some are green, black, orange and blue, some are transparent but that does not make the micrometeorites or micro tektites, the truth is most if not all of the spheres are anthropogenic, that is they are from various Industrial processes such as coal fired power statioins, steam locos, welding and grind stone debris, please don’t try to fool science and do not accept what a multitude believe are micrometeorites which are not, if you care to contact myself I shall be only too willing to help to sort this very misleading believe about spherical particles.
David Bradbury . UK.
Bradbury.arcana@btinternet.com
By: David bradbury on February 13, 2012
at 9:22 pm
Thanks, David. Have you posted your suggestions about possibly finding them and how to distinguish between micrometeorites and the earth-generated spheres?
Boyd
By: T. Boyd on February 14, 2012
at 12:01 am