Authenticity of meteorites on eBay

04/21/13 23:36:00    

By Michael Mealling

If you Google for nickel iron meteorites this is one of the hits you get:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?clk_rvr_id=470393098227&geo_id=9972&keyword=nickel+iron+meteorite&adpos=1t1&crlp=10905623892_2416792&MT_ID=69&_sop=15&tt_encode=raw&adgroup_id=3043227132&crdt=0&_nkw=nickel+iron+meteorite&_pgn=3&_skc=100&rt=nc

Which is an eBay section for meteorites. Its full of what looks like meteorites from Argentina, China, and Russia. So how can you tell that you're getting something authentic?

And while we're at it, does anyone have a vacuum chamber and a tunable laser I could borrow?