3 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2019–2024score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN recommends it as an accessible demonstration of how anyone can collect micrometeorites at home.
Verge Science's pilot of its Trial & Error series follows amateur scientist Jon Larsen on a hunt for micrometeorites. It shows how tiny space rocks can be found on rooftops and confirmed under a microscope.
“Here's a good video running through one way to do this at home” (HN, 2024)
Here [1] is a great video about Larsen and his work on collecting microscopic meteroites. Larsen's book, "In Search of Stardust: Amazing Micrometeorites and Their Terrestrial Imposters" [2] is also great, a gorgeous coffee table book with lots of high-quality photos of meteorites of the kind that you see on the web site. [1] [this video] [2] [link]
Great video about Larsen's work collecting microscopic meteorites
Here's a good video running through one way to do this at home - [this video] (I really like the ending, it's real science which is rare these days) There are a heap of better links to micrometeorites stories than this stackexchange. Discussed many times on HN.
Shows a way to collect micrometeorites at home with real science
I don't think the video mentioned anything about an electron microscope. It's not emphasized, and not present at all in the audio, but there is "mention" within the video. At 8:40 in the video ( [this video] ), when showing the response from Larsen, the sentence after the highlighting reads "a scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination ... would be necessary". So you are right that it wasn't done, but it apparently would have been the next step for a confirmation.
Cites a specific moment in the video about electron microscope confirmation
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
4 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes