2970: Meteor Shower PSA

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Meteor Shower PSA

Title text: If you hold the meteor too long, it may imprint on you and form a contact binary, making reintroduction to space difficult.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a REHABILITATED BOT ABOUT TO BE RELEASED BACK INTO THE WILD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is a public service announcement (PSA) regarding what to do in case you discover a meteorite from the upcoming Perseid meteor shower. (See here regarding 1723: Meteorite Identification).

In the first panel of the comic Cueball discovers a meteorite on the ground from the Perseids meteor shower. He then proceeds to try and throw it into space again. This is of course not possible, but this is not the reason why this action is marked as wrong with an X.

Rather, the PSA claims, in the next panel, that what he should do is contact, and then deliver the meteorite to, an observatory where astronomical "rehabbers", like Ponytail, will care for it, and hopefully release it back into the wild with the next space launch. This is marked with a check mark to show that this is the correct procedure to save meteorites.

This conflates meteoroids that have fallen to the Earth from the sky with baby animals separated from their parents, and in need of rehabilitation (especially baby birds that have fallen from their nests, though more often in trees rather than "the sky"). If you find a sick, injured, or orphaned wild animal, your best bet is to find a nearby wildlife rehabilitator to care for it and return it to the wild, as members of the public will rarely have the same knowledge and expertise as someone who has the training and experience. However, this advice does not apply to meteors. Also, while it may be possible to return the animal to its parents, inadvertent disturbance caused in the process may cause the parents to abandon the young.

The title text says that if you handle the meteor too long you'll form a contact binary, which in this context is two space rocks lumped together. A contact binary is also a type of binary star system, but it's unlikely that a person and a rock will form this.^{[citation needed]} In the process of rehabilitating young animals, preventing imprinting is important, since the animal cannot rely on the human caregiver to succeed in the wild (in either sense).

If you find a recently fallen meteor(ite), or a surviving fragment of one, do not touch it since it may be very cold. Although the surface of the meteor will have been heated by the atmosphere, the interior will still be about as cold as space and quickly cool whatever surface was not already ablated or lost. The size/fragmentation and time it has lain on the ground will dictate how cold it is, unless it was big enough to release enough further heat from the impact itself.

A more important reason, from the perspective of experts who would wish to study your find (rather than 'return it to the sky'), is that handling it directly may contaminate it more than necessary. (Or, in the case of more dangerous examples, it could contaminate you!)

Technically, Randall has the terminology wrong. "Meteor" refers to the 'shooting star' you see in the sky when a meteoroid enters the atmosphere. If it makes it to the ground, the piece that survives is called a "meteorite" (although some call it magma). This may be intentional, as part of the "lost baby bird" analogy, in that, like the chicks of birds (at least, those that don't practice some variation of ground-nesting), an 'actual meteor' should never have been found on the ground in the first place.

Transcript

[A two panel comic with the panels next to each other.]

[In the left side of the first panel, Cueball spots a meteorite on the ground. It lies a bit buried in the earth between tufts of grass. On the right side, he's shown throwing the rock into the air, with small lines indicating the flight of the meteorite. There's an "X" above him. Above this there is the following text:]

This meteor shower weekend, remember: If you find a meteor on the ground, don't try to return it to the sky yourself.

[In the left side of the second panel, Cueball is holding the meteorite in one hand and talking on his cellphone in his other hand, there's a check mark above him. In the middle of the panel Cueball is holding the meteorite out in both hands handing it to Ponytail who is also holding both hand out to receive it. To the right in the panel a rocket is blasting upwards with fire coming out beneath it and a plume of smoke showing its ascending path. Above this there is the following text:]

Instead, contact an observatory where astronomical rehabbers will care for it, and hopefully release it back into the wild with the next space launch.

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Discussion

Pretty sure the term "contact binary" in this instance is referring to the small solar system body variety (a peanut asteroid) rather than a contact binary star, but I can't think of a way to explain that in the explanation.RegularSizedGuy (talk) 06:11, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Are there any known examples of a contact binary star? Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Amongst other things, if you ever see a space-rock fall, and land, don't be tempted to just pick it up. It will probably be extremely cold, for a while. And you don't want to leave your sticky fingerprints on it (or, maybe, its sticky fingerprints on you). If you have a handy (clean) container then perhaps you could scoop it up to stop it from getting lost/soiled where it lies, unless you get more immediate advice directly from experts who might be very interested. (Depends upon who you talk to, and when, but there may be some standing advice that you can follow, if you're not lucky enough to already be an expert in the subject out looking for a particular find.) 172.71.26.87 14:09, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that the "more dangerous examples" should link to something along the lines of SF stories in which infectious material came to Earth via meteorite. The "Green Rocks" link is more about how sci-fi (term used advisedly) alien substances (including meteorites) can have any magic powers the plot needs. I'm trying to come up with examples, but all that's coming to mind immediately is Walter M. Miller Jr.'s "Dark Benediction". BunsenH (talk) 01:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I (as that editor, and of the prior comment here) had the same difficulty. Even a wikiwalk (or, indeed, a tvtropeswalk) didn't seem to give what I thought was there. I mention the Venom symbiote, above (a near-example; most cases of it, in various continuities, seem to have it being brought to Earth... if it 'fell in the open' it was part of a sample-return mission crashing and burning), and there are a number of other "mysterious rock falls which 'infects' the locals who find it and touch it" (much parodied and repeated) but I could not find the unambiguous ur-example or whatever 'famously made it famous' in any real sense.

Green Rocks does have a lot of (obvious) memetic overlap with Smallville and similar treatments around that continuity/canon. (I was mostly worrying that in that case, Clarke aside, pretty much everyone who got 'green rocked' at least at first found the effects beneficial ...it's where they took that, and/or hidden psychological compulsions, that might have been their ultimate downfall. Or at least quickly found themselves uniquely isolated from society due to unwanted death-prognistication skills/whatever.)

It was just a bit of a chuck-it-in, really. Had also been looking at non-meteoric examples. Such as if a soviet satellite's RTG landed, 'intact', you might be wise not to just hold it, or the fictional nuclear weapon discovered by farmers in Sum Of All Fears, or the non-fictional (but not 'loaded') real-life equivalent that luckily wasn't as dangerous as a true Broken Arrow would have been.

So make of it what you want. I tried to keep the Explanation aside short and sweet, rather than overly explain the joke, but doubtless someone else can refine it (or excise it) in ways that I never found able to. 172.70.163.121 12:11, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Andromeda Strain? JohnHawkinson (talk) 02:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The bit in the explanation stating that animals might abandon their young if it smells of humans should be removed. That's a myth. --172.71.22.155 03:22, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

With regard to the "More dangerous examples" suggestion/request may I recommend the short story 'Meteor' by John Wyndham? 172.69.60.136 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)