LA GRANDE — The odds against finding a meteorite that just hit the Earth are astronomical.

But here is a safety tip just in case you do: put on a pair of gloves before touching it to protect yourself from cold, not heat.

“There is a greater danger of getting frostbite than of getting burned” when handling a meteorite that just landed, said Dick Pugh, a meteorite scientist visiting La Grande.

The interior of a meteorite usually is frozen. Seconds earlier, it was in space, where the temperature may be 200 degrees below zero, Pugh said. The outer layer of a meteor momentarily bursts into flame as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, but does not warm its interior.

“It is only a fireball for five or six seconds,” said Pugh, who is from the Portland State University Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory.

Pugh recalled a report by a woman who saw a meteor hit less than 50 feet from her. “By the time she reached it, it had frost on it,” he said.

Only four meteorites have been reported found in Oregon, but none east of the Cascades. The main reason is there are fewer people. But another reason is that many meteorites look like basalt, and Eastern Oregon is filled with basalt.

“To find a stony meteorite in basalt is almost impossible,” Pugh said.

Kansas is the state where the most meteorites are found, partly “because there are hardly any rocks in Kansas,” Pugh said.

Many of the meteorites discovered in Kansas and other places were unearthed by farmers plowing their land.

“Of all the instruments, the plow has found more meteorites than anything,” Pugh said.

Farmers and many others in Oregon have probably found meteorites without realizing it, or stored these unusual rocks and forgotten about them.

“When you are looking for meteorites, it might be best to start in the basement, attic and barns of your relatives,” Pugh said, while giving a talk to middle-school students in La Grande. “There is at least one meteorite 20 miles from here in someone’s basement or attic.”

One of the best ways to determine whether a rock is a meteorite is to see whether it has metal beneath its surface.

“If you see metal it may be a meteorite. Metal normally is not found on the earth’s surface,” Pugh said.

His visit to La Grande was sponsored by the Libraries of Eastern Oregon program, which serves public libraries in the area. The libraries have formed a partnership with the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry in Portland to bring science and technology programs to schools and libraries across rural Oregon.

Pugh noted that meteorites are valuable. He recalled that several years ago in New York a meteor went through a woman’s car.

“The car was worth $500 but the lady received $50,000” for the meteorite, he said.

The last meteorite found in Oregon hit early one morning in May 1981. It struck the roof of a sheriff deputy’s house in Salem and broke into pieces that bounced into the street. The deputy was outside his house when it hit.

The Salem meteorite was small compared to a 9-pound meteorite that crashed through the home of an Alabama woman in 1954, severely bruising but not breaking her hip. Unfortunately the woman did not get to keep the meteorite because she did not own the house. Meteorites in the United States belong to the individual who owns the property they land on.

One of the most interesting meteorites ever found was discovered in Antarctica in 1984. The 4.5 billion-year-old stone is from Mars and has what some scientists believe are fossils of wormlike creatures.

Pugh noted that because the meteorite landed when the Earth’s oceans were being formed, it is possible that material from Mars may have triggered the development of life on earth.

“If this is true, the Martians are here, and they are us,” Pugh joked, adding he believes the evidence is weak.

Over the years, Pugh has examined thousands of rocks for people who suspect they have found a meteorite. Some turned out to be meteorites while many did not.

Years ago Pugh knocked the rust off one and found the words “8 pounds.”

“It was a shot put.”