A pair of Earth, atmospheric and planetary scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has shown how the magnetic field of a meteorite can be damaged by amateur collectors using hand magnets. In their paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, Foteini Vervelidou and Benjamin Weiss describe how they tested the impact on the magnetic field of terrestrial basalt—as a stand in for meteorites—when it is exposed to hand magnets and what they learned by doing so.
Click here for original story, Testing the damage hand magnets used by amateurs do to meteorites
Source: Phys.org