Rant: My uncle thinks his rock is a meteorite, but it's just slag.

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3 Comments

Oh man, this is so common. I see people post these heavy black rocks online all the time, convinced they've got a space rock. Slag is almost always magnetic and has weird bubbles or a glassy look. A real meteorite usually has a thin, dark crust called fusion crust. Your uncle is probably just holding a piece of old industrial waste, not a piece of Mars.

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the_max6mo ago

Is your uncle really excited about it? That's so tough when someone gets their hopes up like that. I've picked up so many cool looking, heavy black rocks myself, totally convinced until I looked closer. They always end up being just lumps of slag from some old factory. Maybe you can gently tell him to look for that smooth, dark crust instead of the bubbly glassy stuff. It's a bummer, but hey, maybe next time he'll find a real one!

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emma3496mo ago

Honestly same thing happened to my cousin last year, he brought over this huge black lump he found near the railroad. Tbh we were all so pumped until a guy at the rock shop took one look and just sighed. Ngl it’s always slag, every single time. That smooth dark crust is the real giveaway, not the shiny bubbly bits. It’s such a letdown but you gotta check for that proper skin on it.

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