Meteorites from flaming fireball over Mississippi scattered across the state

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NASA is urging people not to send them in for analysis.

an image of a meteor streaking above a river in Spain
A meteor streaking above a river. (Image credit: Carlos Fernandez/Getty Images)

A flaming meteor that blazed across three southern U.S. states April 27 has left rocky remnants scattered across parts of Mississippi, where residents are collecting them.

The meteorite fragments seem to have turned up not far from Natchez, Mississippi, though officials have declined to identify the exact locations where they have been found, NASA Meteor Watch reported in a Facebook post.

After reanalyzing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES 16 and 17 satellites, the team determined the space rock was zooming through the sky at about 35,000 mph (56,000 km/h) when it exploded, much lower than the 55,000 mph (88,500 km/h) initially estimated, according to the Facebook post. 

NASA has asked people not to send in their hunks of space to be analyzed. Instead, those who find potential meteorite fragments can use this checklist from Washington University in St. Louis to help identify it.

And it's finders keepers when it comes to extraterrestrial rocks.

"Existing law states that any meteorites belong to the owner of the property on which they fell; out of respect for the privacy of those in the area, we will not disclose the locations of these finds," the NASA Facebook post read.

While the rarest and most special meteorites can fetch up to $1,000 per gram, unclassified black space rocks, or chondrites (which images seem to suggest are akin to the ones that landed in Mississippi last week), typically garner the lowest price, at about $0.50 per gram, according to Geology.com.

Originally published on Live Science.

Tia Ghose
Tia Ghose
Editor-in-Chief (Premium)

Tia is the editor-in-chief (premium) and was formerly managing editor and senior writer for Live Science. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired.com, Science News and other outlets. She holds a master's degree in bioengineering from the University of Washington, a graduate certificate in science writing from UC Santa Cruz and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Tia was part of a team at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that published the Empty Cradles series on preterm births, which won multiple awards, including the 2012 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.