Following the appearance of a bright fireball over New Zealand’s North Island last month, citizen scientist Steve Wyn-Harris successfully recovered a small, black stone believed to be a meteorite. Wyn-Harris, an amateur astronomer, conducted a search of the area after observing the celestial event. While he initially expressed skepticism, noting that many suspected finds are often misidentified as "meteor-wrongs," he performed a field test to verify the object's origin.

To determine if the stone contained the iron and nickel typical of meteorites, Wyn-Harris held a standard fridge magnet to the thumb-sized rock. The presence of a magnetic pull provided the necessary evidence to suggest the object was indeed space debris. Wyn-Harris performed this verification during a video call with a group of fellow citizen scientists and geologists. According to reports, the confirmation of the magnetic attraction was met with immediate excitement from the group, as it provided a strong indicator that the search had been successful.