Marisa O’NeilA week ago Sunday, Rick Gorski...

Marisa O’Neil

A week ago Sunday, Rick Gorski tucked his son in bed like he does

every other night, then went outside for a smoke.

He sat on the balcony of his Eastbluff condominium, which

overlooks Jamboree and the dry, grassy overgrowth at the edge of the

Back Bay. Just after he lighted his cigarette, he saw a ball of light

streak past him from the sky, about 50 feet away, and heard a faint

hiss.

“I remembered the angle and the next day, I walked out there for a

look and out of the blue in an open area is this igneous rock,”

Gorski said. “There are very few rocks in that open area and there’s

this rock that’s got a pitted front and a burn mark around it.”

So far, Gorski has not been able to get confirmation that the rock

is, indeed, a heavenly body since most experts are out for the

holidays. In the mean time, he has hit the library and read up on the

subject.

The rock, which is about the size of a human skull, weighs 16

pounds and has a reddish-orange sheen on parts of it. It has a mostly

smooth surface with a few pock marks, bits of metal and what appears

to be melted sand particles on it.

Adding to the mystery, Gorski said that the rock was the only dry

object in the area when he found it. The previous day, it had rained

and stopped shortly before his close encounter with the falling

object.

“I’m very skeptical about everything,” said his neighbor, Cory

O’Connor, standing near the spot where Gorski found it. “But when I

came down here and saw this crater, that’s what convinced me.”

The oval-shaped divot is about 10-inches long and four-inches

deep, not as large as a meteorite would usually make, said Don

Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program Office at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena. Nine times out of 10 when

someone thinks they’ve found something, Yeomans said, its nothing.

Generally, the real thing will be heavy and solid, have a black or

brown surface, be unlike other rocks in the area and will attract a

magnet. Gorski said the rock, which he’s named “Rikki” after his

14-year-old son, seems to qualify.

“An asteroid is a rocky or metallic object that orbits around the

sun, mostly between Mars and Jupiter,” Yeomans explained.

“Occasionally they run into each other and send smaller chips into

orbit. If one runs into Earth’s atmosphere and starts burning, that’s

a meteor. If it makes it to the earth’s surface, that’s a meteorite.”

Most of the time, people find meteorites in unpopulated areas like

the desert or polar caps, but once in a while they turn up in a

populated area. Yeomans estimated that “hundreds” of meteorites make

it to Earth each year.

“They’re perfectly harmless unless they hit you on the head,” he

said. “An Egyptian dog was killed and a lady in New York had one go

through the trunk of her car.”

If Gorski’s is a genuine meteorite and not a “meteorwrong” as

collectors call them, its value could be out of this world. Right now

there’s a huge market, Yeomans said, and some space rocks are worth

“more than gold.”

But until Gorski finds someone to analyze the specimen, Gorski can

only wish that the shooting star he saw in the sky is the one he now

has in his home.

“In life you have to be in the right place at the right time,” he

said. “I guess I’m lucky. My neighbor told me: ‘I’m 73 years old and

I’ve never even seen a meteorite.’”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.