Unmodified, Non-Metallic Meteorite Showers Spotted In White Mountains Arizona, Third Meteor Fall Of The Year

Arizona State University's top meteorite experts found pieces of meteorites that came blazing in the sky of eastern Arizona earlier this month.  

Laurence Garvie, one of the researchers in the expedition and professor & curator of the Center for Meteorite Studies in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU, referred to the expedition as once in a generation experience. The expedition lasted more than 130 hours.

Netizens flocked the social media with news of sightings in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona on June 2. The dramatic meteor fall was above a private land owned by a tribal community called White Mountain Apache Tribe, ASU reported.

In order to fully develop a search expedition to the races of meteorite, Gavie and Jacob Moore, assistant vice president of tribal relations at ASU, contacted the tribal council asking for a permission to explore the White Mountain grounds.

After granting authority for the expedition to take place, the Arizona State University-White Mountain Apache Tribe Meteorite Expedition headed for the remote landscapes where the meteorite was suspected to have dropped.   

The crusade discovered 15 meteorites, which are determined as chondrites. Those were stony and non-metallic meteorites that are unmodified from melting or differentiation of the parent body, AZ Family learned.

According to reports, this was the third recovered meteorite fall in the United States this year, with the first and second discovered in Mount Blanco, Texas and Osceola, Florida respectively. Garvie highlighted the significant function done by Doppler radar in order to enhance the three finds. Without the Doppler data, the White Mountain meteorites cannot be easily located.

The meteorites will remain as properties of the White Mountain Apache tribe, although the ASU researchers headed the team for the significant expedition. The ASU center will curate the data.