Give your loved one a real "fallen star".

Step 3 Observing your catch.

Back at the shed laboratory, lift the bag back out of the pot and use the forceps to pluck particles from inside the inside-out bag (remember - you turned the bag inside out) and place them on the microscope slide.

You could use your fingers, but the particles are more likely to stay stuck to your fingers and be lost.

Place the slide under the microscope and look.

• Start with the stage lowered and the smallest objective lens selected.
• Raise the stage slowly to bring the particles into focus.
• Gently manoeuvre the slide to bring any likely-looking candidates into the middle of the viewing area before increasing the magnification.
• If you need to move particles around on the slide, do not use a normal needle or pin - time spent stuck to the magnets will have magnetised the particles so that they stick to the needle, and needles are often naturally magnetised as well. Use a splinter of wood or a brush-bristle to move things.

Identifying micrometeorites.

You have done the first step, selecting iron particles with your magnet.

Next, you are looking for signs of melting - your particle should look like a frozen black or grey droplet, probably with a pitted surface. You may be lucky and get an almost spherical drop.

If the particle is reddish-brown and flaky-looking, or with lots of spiky corners, you have probably just found a speck of rust.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to take decent photos of the micrometeorites I found through my microscope lens, so here are a few micrometeorite images from the Net:

http://www.comune.pisa.it/apsn/Minerali/meteo.htm

My pig-latin translations of the captions are:

"Micrometeorite non sferica" = non-spherical micrometeorite
"Micrometeoriti magnetizzate" = magnetic micrometeorite
"Micrometeoriti ferrosa e vetrosa" = iron and glassy micrometeorites
"Micrometeorite cava" = micrometeorite with a dent.