In the US, if a meteorite lands on your property, it's yours and you can sell or donate it as you please. This homeowner probably made a decent amount on the sale, especially with the emphasis on immediate preservation.
The real jackpot here is how this large chunk happened to impact a home belonging to an astute and prepared individual:
He then immediately preserved and documented the entire scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place the meteorite fragments in glass jars.
I can think of many diverse reactions to a meteor strike, but even NASA is singing the praises of this guy and his quick thinking.
"Our cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania, as well as a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey, captured the meteor, and from that we measured its trajectory... The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt."
I don't doubt it, but that's an astounding trajectory estimation...
> The dark flight trajectory of a meteoroid is significantly affected by the atmospheric winds, especially by the jet stream. As a result, the meteorite fall position can be shifted by up to several kilometers compared to a scenario with no winds.
That network is mostly interested in where it falls, not where it came from. A few degrees for finding an origin is a huge variation.
Planetary scientists are motivated to physically examine freshly fallen near pristine samples, yes. They are also keenly interested in origins, intra or extra solar system, relationships to known showers et al.
The less public precursors were and still have an interest in both projected targets and sources.
It's trivial to draw a line between some fixed points and extrapolate back to an origin if there's no external forces acting on the asteroid. But there is - planetary gravity, the moon, potentially the sun heating one side of it, atmospheric wind, weather, etc make a big difference. That makes it harder.
That's basics of meteor observation. As long as camera didn't move, you can plot the track against the stars and time is known. Then with two tracks from different locations, orbit is determined.
Also, a typical consumer camera is going to struggle (even with the best analysis!) to have visual accuracy within even a few degrees of true (due to everything from high compression ratios in post processing to shitty optical properties in the actual camera) and that makes a probability cone that is pretty large.
Browsing that site, The SETI Institute appears to have expanded beyond its original goal of finding extraterrestrial intelligence into astrobiology and more. Perhaps the first attempts at detecting alien radio signals hoped too much?
I have little doubt that, given the infinite size of the universe, that extraterrestrial intelligence (of some sort) exists, the question is whether we will ever detect it... It perhaps even exists as close to us as Europa, should we attempt a landing there...
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