No, McClatchy ain’t making this up. Members of SETI and NASA are using an airship to seek traces of meteorites – and, possibly, alien life:
On Thursday, the scientists flew over the Sierra Nevada foothill region in a chartered zeppelin, hoping to spot craters, burn marks or other signs of falling space particles.
The meteorite did not arrive quietly early on that Sunday morning. Residents throughout the Sierra Nevada, from Lassen to Kernville, reported hearing explosive sounds as it burned in the atmosphere. Many saw a bright white streak in the sky.
The track of that streak ended around Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma, where pieces of the meteorite were found in the parking lot.
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“It’s a gamble,” said Gregory Schmidt, deputy director of the NASA Lunar Science Institute, who was part of Thursday’s search effort. “But for a once-in-a-lifetime (meteorite) fall like this, we think it’s worth it.”
Scientists say the meteorite is probably the most significant event of its kind since the late 1960s. That is because it likely is composed of carbonaceous chondrite, the earliest solid material to form in our solar system more than 4 1/2 billion years ago, before the planets took shape.
This means the fragments littering the Gold Country may contain carbon, amino acids, sugars and even evidence of water that are the very “building blocks of life,” said Brad Bailey, a staff scientist at the Lunar Science Institute.