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If I scraped dirt off the roof of my house, would I find traces of rock from space? Could I see it is space rock under a home microscope?

Could I drop the dirt into water and see denser space rock sinking faster? Is there any simple home experiment I could do to determine I have got some rock from space?

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Can you find (occasional) micrometeorites on the roof of your house? The Norwegian jazz musician Jon Larsen has more or less done exactly that, and even written books about it, including On the Trail of Stardust: The Guide to Finding Micrometeorites: Tools, Techniques, and Identification.

It sounds like a rather tedious process, especially if you want to distinguish actual micrometeorites from random fragments of fireworks, degrading roof tiles, etc. (One of the starting points is to pick out iron- and nickel-rich fragments using a strong magnet.)

Here's a site by another micrometeorite hunter (inspired by Larsen), including suggested equipment and advice: https://micro-meteorites.com

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    $\begingroup$ I was playing jazz on my electronic keyboard just before I read these comments! $\endgroup$
    – user57831
    Commented Aug 5 at 11:04
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    $\begingroup$ @Peter Erwin Having read the links you provided I am definitely going to have a go at finding some micrometeorites! $\endgroup$
    – user57831
    Commented Aug 5 at 11:18
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    $\begingroup$ @DaveTheWave Cool; have fun! (Jon Larsen and his discoveries are featured in The Werner Herzog documentary Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds; that’s where I first heard about him.) $\endgroup$
    – Peter Erwin
    Commented Aug 5 at 13:50
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    $\begingroup$ That's a nice fun fact. Indeed I'm just preparing a public talk for the perseids evening at our local observatory - this will come in handy as an anecdote or incentive for viewers to go out and climb their homes :) $\endgroup$
    – planetmaker
    Commented Aug 5 at 16:05
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    $\begingroup$ +1 but I'm getting a 404 error from the link to micro-meterorites.com $\endgroup$
    – Dave Gremlin
    Commented Aug 5 at 17:59
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If you live in a home with gutters and downspouts, you can easily attempt to collect micrometeorites. They aren't common, but with patience you should succeed sooner or later.

  1. Select a piece of roof for your collection area and identify the gutter and downspout that collect its runoff.
  2. Attach a strong neodymium magnet to the bottom of the downspout, just past where it bends. You can place one inside and one outside to keep them in place with friction. (Or perhaps use something iron/magnetizable steel on the outside of the pipe, like a thick galvanized washer).
  3. Wash the roof off to dislodge anything loose and clean the gutter thoroughly. The magnet should collect anything that comes off of your roof that is ferromagnetic, and that includes a fraction of micrometeorites.
  4. Alternatively, wait. If you live in an area with snow pack, doing this in the fall and then collecting in the spring when the snow melts yields a number of magnetic particles.

I'm not sure how well it would work in a warmer area, as I suspect constant wetness will tend to corrode away the metallic particles. It might be the sort of thing you'd do after each rainstorm in order to be successful. Another idea might be to remove the bottom of the downspout and let the water run into a large bucket so that anything dense sinks to the bottom. Sort with a magnet after rainstorms as shown in the Cody's Lab video I've linked below.

An article by Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) says that each square meter of surface is hit by 1 - 2 micrometeorites per year. He also talks about the method I've described above and the likelihood that you'll gather far more magnetic fly ash than you will micrometeorites, particularly in urban areas. Still, it's worth a try. Cody, of Cody's Lab, made a video a while back collecting material from the surface of snow following the Geminid meteor shower that you might also find interesting. (It's labeled as part 1 but unfortunately there was never a part 2).

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    $\begingroup$ Jon Larsen and collaborators have found micrometeorites on roofs in places like Pasadena, California, and Barcelona, Spain, so it's certainly possible in "warmer areas". $\endgroup$
    – Peter Erwin
    Commented Aug 6 at 2:54
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    $\begingroup$ Warm areas are not the same thing as wet ones... $\endgroup$
    – Kevin Carlson
    Commented Aug 6 at 20:54

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