Micrometeorites

I am working on a machine that could select spherical micro particles from deep sea sediments. It is based on a inclined vibrating plane on which the spherical particles are rolling down. After a few adjustments it seems it works quite good. This picture is a sample of non magnetic particles selected by the machine. I think these spheres are from animal kingdom. Maybe eggs. The drawback of the machine is it also discards many spherules. That would be unacceptable working on dust from urban roofs. But the deep sea sediments, even if difficult to recover, are virtually infinite. Once one find a way to recover deep sea sediments, discarding part of them should not be much problem. Here is a good micrometeorite pretender I found using the machine for the first time on real unchecked sediments (it is translucid): I also find this weird twin that is very probably terrestrial. Opinions on the machine and on the micrometeorites pretenders are welcome. Thanks, Gauthier

  I have no idea of the origin of this little spherical particle. It is not visible on the picture but it is translucid. It took me long to understand the "magical light and flares" is due to bubbles inside the translucid material. Yes, this comes from the sea bottom, at -1500m. Supposing it has an extraterrestrial origin, I think the bubbles would be due to evaporation of metals during its entrance in the high atmosphere. But this may simply have a terrestrial origin. I will send it to for a SEM analysis if possible. Interesting information: This is the first spherical particle I find by mechanical properties of a sphere: I noticed it was rolling better and faster than other particles, I picked it up, check it with the microscope and... yeh! I designed a "micrometeorite finder" or at least a "spherical particle" finder. Just a prototype so far. It uses an inclined aluminum plane with a small motor below transmitting a vibration. Actually I am not happy wi...

I am still working on the sediments I recovered from the deep sea bottom, at -1500 m deep. A few days ago I extracted some magnetic particles with a magnet, I look through the microscope and I saw quite a few interesting things. Today I took some pictures of the particles. Some particles, with spherical shapes are translucid but I could not show this on a picture. I need to improve my set up to do so. So I discarded the translucid ones and took pictures of others. Here they are. This one is a nice barred olivine Micrometeorite. It looks like MM 340 from the book "In the search of Stardust" by Jon Larsen. Notice it is surprisingly not weathered despite it is coming from the sea bottom. Unfortunately this one is probably not a Micrometeorite. First it is too big. The shape is too spherical. I cannot see any detail suggesting it is a MM. But there are very few spherical particles in the sediments I recovered, so it would be interesting to analyze this despite it does not actuall...