Meteorite Or Meteor-Wrong?

More than 2 years ago, while we, (my colleague and I) were having our break at the side of the desert highway of our travel from Yanbu to Jeddah, I spotted a weird looking rock. I immediately picked it up, and I couldn't figure out what kind of rock it was, but then I thought that it might be a meteorite because the surface of the rock looks like it was melted, which can only happen when a meteorite entered the earth's atmosphere.

So I kept it inside my bag together with my things, and when we arrived home, I used it as a bookholder (or whatchamacallit), until just the other day, I decided to look it up in the internet to make sure if it is really a meteorite or a meteor-wrong, well that's how the expert call it if it's not a meteorite.

A lot of sites came out when I searched for "Meteorite Identification". I tried different sites but the Meteorite Market was the best. There was 1 to 8 steps to really know if the rock I found is a meteorite. It actually starts at step #2, but I started at step #3 because step #2 is for those people who saw the rock fell from the sky, and I didn't see it fell. The rock passed easily on step #3 and #4 but when I get to # 5, which is about the magnetism of the rock, it failed. My rock did not attract a magnet, so it ends there.

90% of all meteorites, whether it's Stone Meteorite, Iron Meteorite or Stony-Iron Meteorite, should attract a magnet because of its metal contents. The metal contents of the meteorite is also the reason why the color of  meteorites are black  to brown, and the brown color on the surface is rust.

To tell you the truth, I was so disappointed at the result of the test, I really thought I have a real meteorite in my hand. Anyway I will still keep it as a souvenir from my trip, and who knows, it might still be a meteorite, remember it says 90% of all meteorites are magnetic, and not 100%.

I just have to open my eyes a little bit wider when I'm in the desert. I still do not know when our next trip will be, it'll be very exciting!

The Meteorite Exchange Inc.

A Good Samaritan in The Desert.

Yanbu Snapshots

We rented a car here in Jeddah and went to Yanbu yesterday afternoon to visit our shop there. This is our second trip to Yanbu with myself driving a car. At first I felt confident driving the car, everything seemed to be going great, that was until our trip back to Jeddah in the afternoon the next day. We decided to stop a while to heed the call of nature and to take a few snapshots from our camera, but I made a mistake taking the car too far from the side of the road, where the ground is too soft and so the wheel of our car got trapped from the sand, we couldn't get out, the more I tried to pump the gas thinking that we could get our wheel free from the deep soft sand, but the deeper our wheel sunk. I tried putting some pieces of woods that we found around the site but it was no use, the car was not going anywhere. Then I got scared, we've only got a small bottle of water and it was mid afternoon and was burning hot.

Then Nelson said we should get help from some passersby. A Pakistani guy stopped and tried to help us. He brought ropes to help our car be pulled from the sand but because it was made of some plastic-like material, it was too weak and snapped. He then get another rope from his delivery truck, but this time it looked like a seatbelt from some old cars and it was made of nylon. We tried to tie it up at the rear of our car and to the front of his delivery truck, then he begun to pull our car out of the sand and sure enough it worked. Thank God! We offered him water and a lot of thank yous after that, without him we wouldn't be able to get back to Jeddah this afternoon and we will still be there on that same spot at this moment. We asked his name and he replied "Mustaq".

Nelson and I want to say Thank You from the bottom of our hearts again to Mustaq. You really are a good Samaritan. God bless you.

*The small picture at the left above shows the exact spot where our car got trapped from the sand.

**The video above shows Mustaq driving his truck, the Pakistani man who helped us.

Link: Trip To yanbu (wordpress)