Skip to main content

Home/ SciByte/ Group items tagged meteorite

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Mars Base

Big Meteorite Discovered in Antarctica | Meteorites & Antarctica | Space.com - 0 views

  • 40-pound (18 kilogram)
  • Initial tests show it is an ordinary chondrite, the most common type of meteorite found on Earth
  • This is the biggest meteorite found in East Antarctica for 25 years
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • More than 38,000 meteorites have been found in Antarctica, but only 30 bigger than 40 pounds (18 kg).
  • The Russian meteor that burst into fragments above the Chelyabinsk region on Feb. 15 is also an ordinary chondrite
  • charred black crust stands out
  • in the
  • snow, and the cold, dry climate helps preserve any organic chemicals inside the rocks
  • The expedition collected 425 meteorites in 40 days, with a total weight of 165 pounds (75 kg).
  • they may have found one Mars meteorite and one piece of the asteroid Vesta among the many discoveries.
  • A team from Belgium and Japan discovered the
  • meteorite as the members drove across the East Antarctic plateau on snowmobiles
Mars Base

Rare Water-Rich Mars Meteorite Discovered : Discovery News - 0 views

  • A rare Martian meteorite recently found in Morocco contains minerals with 10 times more water than previously discovered Mars meteorites
  • raises new questions about when and how long the planet most like Earth in the solar system had conditions suitable for life
  • believed to be similar to those studied by NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, is the second-oldest of 110 named stones originating from Mars that have been retrieved on Earth
  • Purchased from a Moroccan meteorite dealer in 2011, the black, baseball-sized stone, which weighs less than 1 pound, is 2.1 billon years old, meaning it formed during what is known as the early Amazonian era in Mars' geologic history.
  • The only older Mars meteorite found so far is the 4-billion-year-old Allan Hills 84001 Antarctica stone that was the source of speculation about microfossils in 1996
  • Early Mars was believed to be warm and wet, but the planet lost most of its atmosphere and its surface water to become a cold, dry desert that appears today
  • The time from when our meteorite is from is maybe a transitional period in the climate, when Mars was losing its atmosphere, losing its water on the surface
  • relatively rich in water -- about 6,000 parts per million -- compared with typical Martian meteorites that contain about 200- to 300 parts per million
  • similar to basaltic rocks on Earth that form in volcanic eruptions
  • NWA 7034, nicknamed "Black Beauty," also contains tiny bits of carbon, formed from geologic, not biological activity
  • Scientists don't know why more meteorites like Black Beauty haven't been found on Earth. The period of time from which they originated may be relatively short, or most may not survive the trip through Earth's atmosphere
  • This one does look completely different," he added. "It's jet black. The others are slightly greenish cast
  • After an initial battery of tests revealed the rock's unique nature, meteorite hunters returned to the area where it was found to search for other similar stones
  • took several months to get an idea of what it was
  • eventually realized there was no other conclusion but that it was Martian and that it was different from all the other ones
  • If it were similar, we would have known within one day," he added
  • Four more pieces, all smaller than the original, have now been found
Mars Base

Norwegian Family Finds Meteorite Crashed Through Their Roof | Fallen Meteorites | Space... - 0 views

  • Norwegian family arrived at their cabin in Oslo recently to discover that a meteorite had apparently fallen through their roof
  • after visiting the holiday cabin for the first time all winter,
  • rock may have fallen during a wave of meteor sightings over Norway on March 1
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • hundreds of tips and have been searching for bits of meteorites
  • identified the rock as a rare type of breccia meteorite, which is a conglomerate of smaller fragments of minerals
  • 1.3 pound (585 gram) stone was found split in two
  • Space rocks rarely fall in populated areas, and such a find in Norway is exceedingly special
  • According to Views and News from Norway, only 14 meteorites have been found in the Scandinavian country since 1848.
Mars Base

Buddhist statue, discovered by Nazi expedition, is made of meteorite, new study reveals - 0 views

  • a 1,000 year-old ancient Buddhist statue which was first recovered by a Nazi expedition in 1938 has been analysed by scientists and has been found to be carved from a meteorite
  • statue, known as the Iron Man, weighs 10kg and is believed to represent a stylistic hybrid between the Buddhist and pre-Buddhist Bon culture
  • discovered in 1938 by an expedition of German scientists
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • expedition was supported by Nazi SS Chief Heinrich Himmler and the entire expeditionary team were believed to have been SS members.
  • unknown how the statue was discovered
  • believed that the large swastika carved into the centre of the figure may have encouraged the team to take it back to Germany
  • only became available for study following an auction in 2007.
  • first team to study the origins of the statue
  • The team was able to classify it as an ataxite
  • a rare class of iron meteorite with high contents of nickel.
  • statue was chiseled from a fragment of the Chinga meteorite which crashed into the border areas between Mongolia and Siberia about 15,000 years ago
  • first debris was officially discovered in 1913 by gold prospectors
  • believe that this individual meteorite fragment was collected many centuries before
Mars Base

Meteorites found in Calif. along path of fireball - 0 views

  • Meteorites found in Calif. along path of fireball
  • pieces from a meteor that was probably about the size of a minivan
  • rocks came from a meteor, believed to between 4 to 5 billion years old
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • scientists have confirmed his suspicions: it's one of the more primitive types of space rocks out there, dating to the early formation of the solar system 4 to 5 billion years ago
  • found the first piece on Tuesday along a road between a baseball field and park on the edge of Lotus near Coloma, where James W. Marshall first discovered gold in California, at Sutter's Mill in 1848.
  • Robert Ward has been hunting and collecting meteorites for more than 20 years
  • Ward, who has found meteorites in every continent but Antarctica
  • CM" - carbonaceous chondrite
  • actually has two rocks but suspects they were part of the same small meteorite that broke on impact. Each weighs about 10 grams - about the same as two nickels
  • Experts say the flaming meteor was probably about the size of a minivan when it entered the Earth's atmosphere with a loud boom and about one-third of the explosive force of the atomic bomb
  • seen from Sacramento, Calif., to Las Vegas and parts of northern Nevada.
  • event of that size might happen once a year around the world
  • most of them occur over the ocean or an uninhabited area
  • most meteors you see in the night's sky are the size of tiny stones or even grains of sand, and their trail lasts all of a second or two
  • meteor probably weighed about 154,300 pounds
  • probably released energy equivalent to a 5-kiloton explosion - the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons
  • The boom, another expert said, was caused by the speed with which the space rock entered the atmosphere
  • Meteorites enter Earth's upper atmosphere at somewhere between 22,000 mph and 44,000 mph - faster than the speed of sound, thus creating a sonic boom.
  • friction between the rock and the air is so intense that "it doesn't even burn it up, it vaporizes
Mars Base

New Mineral Found in Meteorite is From Solar System's Beginnings - 0 views

  • Scientists have discovered a new mineral embedded in a meteorite that fell to Earth over 40 years ago, and it could be among the oldest minerals, formed in the early days of our solar system
  • Panguite is an especially exciting discovery since it is not only a new mineral, but also a material previously unknown to science
  • meteorite arrived at Earth in 1969 as an exploding fireball in the skies over Mexico, scattering thousands of pieces of meteorites across the state of Chihuahua
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • largest carbonaceous chondrite
  • ever found on our planet and is considered by many the best-studied meteorite in history
  • the new mineral is likely among the first solid objects formed in our solar system and could date back to over 4 billion years ago, before the formation of Earth and the other planets.
Mars Base

Meteorite From California Fireball Is Meteor-wrong, Scientist Says | Space.com - 0 views

  • A rock thought to be a meteorite from a recent fireball seen over Northern California is in fact, just a regular Earth rock
  • Projected band (light area) where meteorites of different size may have fallen over Marin and Sonoma counties from an Oct. 17, 2012 meteor.
  • Novato, Calif. resident
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • read about the fireball and recalled hearing a sound on her roof that night
  • she and neighbors found a ding on the roof
  • On closer inspection, that crust was a product of weathering of a natural rock, not from the heat of entry
  • Examination of the rock under a petrographic microscope quickly revealed the stone was not a meteorite
  • the ding on Webber's roof, along with her recollection of the sound she heard that night, suggest her house may in fact have been hit by a still-missing meteorite.
  • r Marin and Sonoma counties
Mars Base

Meteorite smashed through Oslo roof : Views and News from Norway - 0 views

  • sure when the meteorite actually crashed through the cabin’s roof, because the cabin had been closed during the winter.
  • cross-section that it contains bits of many different particles that are compressed together
  • indicates that another, larger meteorite smashed rock on another planet before the meteorite found in Oslo was propelled into outer space
Mars Base

Mars methane linked to meteorites - 0 views

  • Until now no-one had thought to check whether exposing meteorites to sunlight would create methane.
  • work on ultraviolet radiation's role in releasing methane from vegetation on Earth led them naturally to question its source in Mars' atmosphere
  • Methane doesn't persist in the atmosphere, which means there must be some sort of process that continuously produces it
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • because the estimates for the amount of methane produced don't explain the level of methane in Mars' atmosphere
  • amount of methane we measured from the meteorite was much higher than we expected
  • can't say where this organic matter comes from, but our results show that it definitely has an extraterrestrial origin
  • a significant amount of weathering would be necessary to convert any meteoritic organic matter to methane
  • because ultraviolet rays cannot penetrate far into minerals.
  • while meteorites contribute to the production of methane in the Martian atmosphere, this doesn't mean they're the only source.
Mars Base

Rare meteorite fragment donated to UC Davis geologist - 0 views

  • UC Davis alumnus Gregory Jorgensen ’90, Ph.D. ’95, presented UC Davis geologist Qing-Zhu Yin with a donation today, May 30, of a meteorite piece that fell beside his driveway in Coloma, Calif.
  • invaluable” to science and has asked others to come forth with donations
  • donation is one of two meteorite pieces he stumbled
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • first was found while taking a casual walk with his wife, Alice, and 7-month-old daughter, Abriela at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park near his home.
  • He hadn’t heard the fireball that indicated the meteorite’s fall on April 22, and his wife was in Los Angeles at the time
  • When they saw people at the park looking for something on the ground, they thought they were mushroom hunters
  • When we got back to the car, I looked down and saw a rock that looked a little different
  • “I put it in my pocket. Over the course of the days, I figured out it was a meteorite
Mars Base

Big Meteorite Chunk Found in Russia's Ural Mountains - 0 views

  • More than 100 fragments have been found so far that appear to be from the space rock
  • now scientists
  • have discovered the biggest chunk so far, a meteorite fragment weighing more than one kilogram (2.2 lbs).
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Fragments of the meteorite have been found along a 50 kilometer (30 mile) trail under the meteorite’s flight path
  • Small meteorites have also been found in an eight-meter (25 feet) wide crater in the region’s Lake Chebarkul
  • believes there are more to be found, including a possible biggest chunk that he says may lie at the bottom of Lake Chebarkul. It could be up to 60cm in diameter
  • This video from NASA explains more
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Rover Confirms Mars Origin of Some Meteorites - 0 views

  • Examination of the Martian atmosphere by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover confirms that some meteorites that have dropped to Earth really are from the Red Planet
  • A key new measurement of the inert gas argon in Mars' atmosphere by Curiosity's laboratory provides the most definitive evidence yet of the origin of Mars meteorites while at the same time providing a way to rule out Martian origin of other meteorites
  • The new measurement is a high-precision count of two forms of argon -- argon-36 and argon-38 -- accomplished by the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument inside the rover.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • These lighter and heavier forms, or isotopes, of argon exist naturally throughout the solar system
  • On Mars the ratio of light to heavy argon is skewed because much of that planet's original atmosphere was lost to space
  • The lighter form of argon was taken away more readily because it rises to the top of the atmosphere more easily and requires less energy to escape
  • That left the Martian atmosphere relatively enriched in the heavier isotope, argon-38
  • past analyses by Earth-bound scientists of gas bubbles trapped inside Martian meteorites had already narrowed the Martian argon ratio to between 3.6 and 4.5
  • Measurements by NASA's Viking landers in the 1970s put the Martian atmospheric ratio in the range of four to seven
  • The new SAM direct measurement on Mars now pins down the correct argon ratio at 4.2
  • The Curiosity measurements do not directly measure the current rate of atmospheric escape
  • NASA's next mission to Mars, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN), is designed to do so
  • That mission is being prepared
  • for a launch-opportunity period that begins on Nov. 18
Mars Base

Half-Ton Fragment Of Russian Meteorite Recovered From Lake | Popular Science - 0 views

  • The fragment was so large it:
  • 1) broke into three pieces during removal
  • 2) broke the scale scientists used to weigh it, once the scale reached the 570-kilogram mark.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • . It's
  • d off to a local natural history museum, so perhaps it'll go on display soon.
  • The dive seems to be part of an ongoing effort to pull meteorite pieces out of the lake for study
  • Divers previously recovered 12 rocks from the lake, but scientists confirmed only five of those were actually meteorite fragments
Mars Base

Meteorite Hunters Find Fragments from the Recent 'Daytime Fireball' in California - 0 views

  • Update: NASA and the SETI Institute are asking the public to submit any amateur photos or video footage of the meteor that illuminated the sky over the Sierra Nevada mountains and created sonic booms that were heard over a wide area at 7:51 a.m. PDT Sunday, April 22, 2012.
  • Several other fragments were found, the first one by noted meteorite hunter Robert Ward.
  • if anyone has access to security camera footage taken on April 22, 2012 in the area of the fireball sighting, it may be useful to check them to see if the fireball was visible. “Astronomers could use them to pin down the site of the fall, maximizing the hunt for fragments
Mars Base

Scientists find new primitive mineral in meteorite - 0 views

  • named after Pan Gu, the giant from ancient Chinese mythology who established the world by separating yin from yang to create the earth and the sky
  • nanomineralogy investigation of primitive meteorites—which Ma has been leading since 2007—nine new minerals, including panguite, have been found in the Allende meteorite
Mars Base

Mars missions may learn from meteor Down Under - 0 views

  • Scientists have tried to find out how the planet's environment came to contain methane gas, which contains carbon – a substance found in all living things
  • meteorites, which continually bombard the surface of Mars, contain enough carbon compounds to generate methane when they are exposed to sunlight.
  • Scientists planning future missions to Mars could use the findings to fine-tune their experiments, potentially making their trips more valuable.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • researchers carried out experiments on samples from the Murchison meteorite, which fell on Australia more than 40 years ago
  • team took particles from the rock – which has a similar composition to meteorites on Mars
  • exposed them to levels of ultraviolet radiation equivalent to sunlight on the red planet, which is cooler than Earth.
  • the amount of methane given off by the particles was significant, and could account for a large part of the methane in Mars' atmosphere.
Mars Base

Mars Rover Curiosity Proves Some Earth Meteorites are Martian | Space.com - 0 views

  • New data collected by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has pinned down the exact ratio of two forms of the inert gas argon in the Martian atmosphere
  • help confirm the origins of some meteorites
  • could also help researchers understand how and when Mars lost most of its atmosphere
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • By understanding exactly how much of the lighter isotope argon-36 is present in the Martian atmosphere and comparing it to the heavier isotope, argon-38, scientists were able to confirm what the composition of a Martian meteorite on Earth should be
  • Curiosity found that the argon ratio for Mars is 4.2. The lighter form of argon has escaped more readily than the heavier isotope
  • Before this new study, scientists had placed the argon ratio somewhere between 3.6 and 4.5 by analyzing gas trapped inside Martian meteors on Earth
  • Argon is the clearest signature of atmospheric loss because it's chemically inert and does not interact
  • Curiosity is unable to directly investigate how much atmosphere Mars is losing, NASA's next Mars mission is designed to do just that
  • The MAVEN spacecraft (the name is short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) will launch toward the Red Planet in November
Mars Base

Dazzling Meteor Fireball Lights Up UK Night Sky | Space.com - 0 views

  • A spectacular meteor wowed stargazers across the United Kingdom Friday (Sept. 21) when it flared up and shattered into piece
  • spotted by observers across Scotland and northern England as well as Ireland
  • Many observers captured views of the meteor on camera
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • video of the Sept. 21 meteor shows what appears to be a fireball created as a small space rock breaks apart in Earth's atmosphere. Pieces of the meteor can easily be seen separating from the main body in his view
  • many witnesses to wonder if it was sparked by a man-made piece of space junk falling out of orbit
  • experts have conclusively tied the event to a naturally occurring space rock burning up in Earth's atmosphere
  • Veteran satellite tracker Marco Langbroe
  • the fireball was definitely a meteor.
  • sighting reports to determine the fireball's trajectory and studied videos posted by witnesses to determine how long it lasted
  • ack-of-the-envelope reconstruction therefore shows that this must have been a meteoric fireball, quite likely of asteroidal origin, and we definitely can exclude a satellite re-entry
  • meteor in space is called a meteoroid. Only when it flares up in the night sky does it become a meteor. Any remains of the object that reach the ground, meanwhile, are called meteorites
  • Earlier this year, a rare daytime fireball surprised U.S. observers in California and Nevada when it unleashed a sonic boom that some mistook for a small earthquake. The meteor was caused by a minivan-size asteroid and created several meteorites that NASA retrieved in a follow-up search
Mars Base

Astrobiologists claim meteorite carried space algae - 0 views

  • The structure of one of the samples led the Cardiff researchers to conclude that the fireball was once a comet.
1 - 20 of 48 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page