[meteorite-list] american meteorite museum
Good morning list.I,we all know what happened to the OLD A M M.It literally fell apart.But I seem to remember reading that it was rebuilt in another location.Am I correct???If so,what ever happened to that building?And where was it located?Anything from nininger always has my attention. steve arnold, chicago Steve R.Arnold, Chicago, IL, 60120 Illinois Meteorites,Ltd! website url http://stormbringer60120.tripod.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Scales
What do you use for scales? What do you like about your scales? What do you dislike? are they available online? How much did you pay? Enough questions?? __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] american meteorite museum
Hi Steve You wrote Good morning list.I,we all know what happened to the OLD A M M.It literally fell apart.But I seem to remember reading that it was rebuilt in another location.Am I correct??? Yes you are correct. I have a web page that shows the building in Sedona. The page is based on the different postcards that were issued by Nininger to sell at his shop. http://jensenmeteorites.com/Postcards/american_meteorite_museum.htm There are also 3 photos in Find a Falling Star. One from inside the museum (p 150) by MC and two from Sedona (p 223 224). Just for fun you can compare the photos to the postcard images and see some of the same items on the wall. If so,what ever happened to that building?And where was it located The building is still there. I have a friend who has told me he saw it recently. I hope to stop by some day and will snap a picture and add it to my web page. ?Anything from nininger always has my attention. Mine too. Especially stuff that was produced at his museum. Mike steve arnold, chicago Steve R.Arnold, Chicago, IL, 60120 Illinois Meteorites,Ltd! website url http://stormbringer60120.tripod.com __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list -- Mike Jensen Jensen Meteorites 16730 E Ada PL Aurora, CO 80017-3137 303-337-4361 IMCA 4264 website: www.jensenmeteorites.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Video of Steve Arnold's dig and new find
Go to http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/2181702.html ant there is a video link at the top of the story. You can see it being dug up Rus Schmidt __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Meteorite videos
Hi All Anyone who have had luck to save the 2 pallasite movies ? if any luck, I am interested... All the best Lars __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Scales
Hi Gary, try this: http://www.niger-meteorite-recon.de/en/meteorite-scalecube.htm I have one of those, they´re perfect! Stefan What do you use for scales? What do you like about your scales? What do you dislike? are they available online? How much did you pay? Enough questions?? __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
RE: [meteorite-list] Scales
Hi Gary and Stefan, I had assumed Gary was talking about scales for measuring meteorite mass, but perhaps Stefan's interpretation is correct and Gary was looking for photo orientation cubes (or something similar). However, if mass scale is what you meant, there are two main issues that affect cost: accuracy and dynamic range. I use an Acculab V-200 digital scale that reads out to 0.01 grams and has a mass limit of 200 grams. So a dynamic range of 2, or a little more than 14 bits. This is actually rather good for a scale that is quite modestly priced. If you need to go heavier than 200 grams, you'll probably be satisfied with 0.1-gram accuracy. I'm sure someone out there on the list can recommend a good digital scale than can weigh up to a couple kilos or more (Acculab makes these as well). --Rob __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
RE: [meteorite-list] Meteorite videos
Hi Lars and List, I tried to save from temporary intenet files folder, but the file seems to be dat, or WMV but format is not recognised by windows media player, after saving and changing names. Any help anyone??? Kevin. Hi All Anyone who have had luck to save the 2 pallasite movies ? if any luck, I am interested... All the best Lars __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Fwd: Re: [meteorite-list] Video of Steve Arnold's dig and new find
At 09:16 AM 1/12/2006 -0600, you wrote: Go to http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/2181702.html ant there is a video link at the top of the story. You can see it being dug up Rus Schmidt VERY COOL!!! Looks like farming meteorites is much more profitable than raising corn!! and more fun, also. Hey Steve, I think it's time to invest in a 3 bottom meteorite plow...ha...ha Congratulations, TomT P.S. How much land can you 'plow' in a day? * __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Stardust Probe Lands in Utah this Weekend
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635175354,00.html Stardust probe lands in Utah this weekend Yet the best place to view re-entry may be Nevada By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News January 11, 2006 The best nearby location to watch the Stardust space probe burn through the atmosphere prior to its landing at Dugway Proving Ground isn't in Utah - it's in eastern Nevada, says an expert amateur astronomer. Stardust will blaze back to Earth early next Sunday about 3 a.m., coming in from the West. It will be back after seven years in outer space, having scooped in examples of interstellar dust and bits of Comet Wild-2. It will come in at 29,000 miles per hour, its heat shield creating a long blaze in the dark heavens. For those in the best places, Stardust's return home will look like a bright, fiery meteor streaking from northwest to southeast, said Patrick Wiggins, NASA solar system ambassador to Utah and Nevada. While it should be visible across a large swath of the northwestern United States, its landing state may not be a good place to see it. Wiggins said the best places to see it may be along a line from Elko, Nev., to Wendover. People there may also hear its sonic boom. The view along the Wasatch Front is not expected to be good, so some people from that area are planning an unofficial observing session at the Wendover airport, he said. Other groups are said to be forming near Elko and Wells, both cities in Nevada. Why can't Salt Lake residents get up early and have a great view from their front yards? First, there's the likelihood of rain, with clouds that can ruin the view for any observer. According to the National Weather Service, the prediction for Saturday and Sunday is mostly cloudy. That does not look promising for watching a spacecraft re-enter, at least looking at the forecast a few days in advance. But even if the weather cooperated, Salt Lake City still would not be the place to watch Stardust's return. Assuming good weather, the problem is that it's simply going to be so low from the sky that, say, from the Salt Lake Valley, the Oquirrhs will probably stick up higher than the spacecraft will be. From a site to the west, it will be higher in the sky. The forecast for Wendover isn't much better: cloudy Saturday night with a 40 percent chance of rain and snow, mostly cloudy on Sunday. But if the clouds happen to part at the right moment, the view could be spectacular. Take it from someone who has seen some spacecraft re-entries, Wiggins said in a telephone interview. They're really impressive when they go over your head. Not only does the re-entry create a fireball, but this can be followed with an eerie purple ion train, a stream of charged gases. Clouds may not prevent all possible observations. Just possibly, Stardust will let loose a sonic boom when it flies over. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] New Study Highlights Role of Hit-and-Run Collision in the Formation of Planets, Asteroids, and Meteorites
http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=799 January 11, 2006 UC Santa Cruz Press Release Contact: Tim Stephens (831) 459-2495; [EMAIL PROTECTED] New study highlights role of hit-and-run collisions in the formation of planets, asteroids, and meteorites Hit-and-run collisions between embryonic planets during a critical period in the early history of the Solar System may account for some previously unexplained properties of planets, asteroids, and meteorites, according to researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who describe their findings in a paper to appear in the January 12 issue of the journal Nature. The four terrestrial or rocky planets (Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury) are the products of an initial period, lasting tens of millions of years, of violent collisions between planetary bodies of various sizes. Scientists have mostly considered these events in terms of the accretion of new material and other effects on the impacted planet, while little attention has been given to the impactor. (By definition, the impactor is the smaller of the two colliding bodies.) But when planets collide, they don't always stick together. About half the time, a planet-sized impactor hitting another planet-sized body will bounce off, and these hit-and-run collisions have drastic consequences for the impactor, said Erik Asphaug, associate professor of Earth sciences at UCSC and first author of the Nature paper. You end up with planets that leave the scene of the crime looking very different from when they came in--they can lose their atmosphere, crust, even the mantle, or they can be ripped apart into a family of smaller objects, Asphaug said. The remnants of these disrupted impactors can be found throughout the asteroid belt and among meteorites, which are fragments of other planetary bodies that have landed on Earth, he said. Even the planet Mercury may have been a hit-and-run impactor that had much of its outer layers stripped away, leaving it with a relatively large core and thin crust and mantle, Asphaug said. That scenario remains speculative, however, and requires additional study, he said. Asphaug and postdoctoral researcher Craig Agnor used powerful computers to run simulations of a range of scenarios, from grazing encounters to direct hits between planets of comparable sizes. Coauthor Quentin Williams, professor of Earth sciences at UCSC, analyzed the outcomes of these simulations in terms of their effects on the composition and final state of the remnant objects. The researchers found that even close encounters in which the two objects do not actually collide can severely affect the smaller object. As two massive objects pass near each other, gravitational forces induce dramatic physical changes--decompressing, melting, stripping material away, and even annihilating the smaller object, Williams said. You can do a lot of physics and chemistry on objects in the Solar System without even touching them. A planet exerts enormous pressure on itself through self-gravity, but the gravitational pull of a larger object passing close by can cause that pressure to drop precipitously. The effects of this depressurization can be explosive, Williams said. It's like uncorking the world's most carbonated beverage, he said. What happens when a planet gets decompressed by 50 percent is something we don't understand very well at this stage, but it can shift the chemistry and physics all over the place, producing a complexity of materials that could very well account for the heterogeneity we see in meteorites. The formation of the terrestrial planets is thought to have begun with a phase of gentle accretion within a disk of gas and dust around the Sun. Embryonic planets gobbled up much of the material around them until the inner Solar System hosted around 100 Moon-sized to Mars-sized planets, Asphaug said. Gravitational interactions with each other and with Jupiter then tossed these protoplanets out of their circular orbits, setting off an era of giant impacts that probably lasted 30 to 50 million years, he said. Scientists have used computers to simulate the formation of the terrestrial planets from hundreds of smaller bodies, but most of those simulations have assumed that when planets collide they stick, Asphaug said. We've always known that's an approximation, but it's actually not easy for planets to merge, he said. Our calculations show that they have to be moving fairly slowly and hit almost head-on in order to accrete. It is easy for a planet to attract and accrete a much smaller object than itself. In giant impacts between planet-sized bodies, however, the impactor is comparable in size to the target. In the case of a Mars-size impactor hitting an Earth-size target, the impactor would be one-tenth the mass but fully one-half the diameter of the Earth, Asphaug said. Imagine two planets colliding, one half as big as the other, at a typical impact angle of 45 degrees.
Re: [meteorite-list] Video of Steve Arnold's dig and new find
Thanks Rus for the great link! We have to agree we are living in a time of a very special Meteorite Hunter, Steve Arnold. This does not lessen the importance of all those pathfinders who have explored, and continue to explore the planet in this novel quest. But the extraodinary press Steve's recent finds have prompted, has catapulted Meteorite into the popular mythology in a new and revolutionary way due in no small part to the internet. Timing is everything! All the dealers in ites are bound to reap some reward in this trickle down economy eventually[sooner rather than later cause the public's memory is great but short. Be pro active and advertize Pallasite. Jerry Flaherty - Original Message - From: Rus at DataLink [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 10:16 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] Video of Steve Arnold's dig and new find Go to http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/2181702.html ant there is a video link at the top of the story. You can see it being dug up Rus Schmidt __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Scales
Hiho, and on ebay one finds a lot of digital pocket scales with an acurracy (at least reads the display like that) of 0.01g. They are quite affordable with 50-60$, seem to be an important acessory for potheads. Range is up to 50grams or 60grams. I think for a collector it's sufficient. Until one has developped, that one feels a need to get a more accurate weight for one's 70g Moon or Mars chunk, it takes a while and for the cheaper large NWA and Campo-kg chunks, your kitchen scale will be enough meanwhile. Cheers! Martin - Original Message - From: Matson, Robert [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stefan Brandes [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Meteorite-list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:42 PM Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Scales Hi Gary and Stefan, I had assumed Gary was talking about scales for measuring meteorite mass, but perhaps Stefan's interpretation is correct and Gary was looking for photo orientation cubes (or something similar). However, if mass scale is what you meant, there are two main issues that affect cost: accuracy and dynamic range. I use an Acculab V-200 digital scale that reads out to 0.01 grams and has a mass limit of 200 grams. So a dynamic range of 2, or a little more than 14 bits. This is actually rather good for a scale that is quite modestly priced. If you need to go heavier than 200 grams, you'll probably be satisfied with 0.1-gram accuracy. I'm sure someone out there on the list can recommend a good digital scale than can weigh up to a couple kilos or more (Acculab makes these as well). --Rob __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Video of Steve Arnold's dig and new find
After watching this video I think that Mr Arnold have just perfect place to search meteorites. Big , flat, clean fields. No trees, no grass, no stones, no rivers, no old war pollution, no single mouse hole :))) and a big, bad, deep looking detector. Oh yeah, with that puppy You even can find alien spacecraft. With something like this, our Morasko should be more ordinary than Campo. -[ MARCIN CIMALA ]-[ I.M.C.A.#3667 ]- http://www.Meteoryt.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.PolandMET.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.Gao-Guenie.com GSM +48(607)535 195 [ Member of Polish Meteoritical Society ] __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] New Vatican State Meteorite Collection link
Hello I have finaly ended to build the new site of the Vatican State Meteorite Collection, you find here: http://it.geocities.com/mcomemeteoritecollection/Vatican.html In conclusion the Vatican Collection its composed from many little pieces, some its very ridicolus pieces, and other important pieces type Nakhla and many French meteorites and some main masses. If you find mistakes please inform me. Matteo M come Meteorite - Matteo Chinellato Via Triestina 126/A - 30030 - TESSERA, VENEZIA, ITALY Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sale Site: http://www.mcomemeteorite.it Collection Site: http://www.mcomemeteorite.info MSN Messanger: spacerocks at hotmail.com EBAY.COM:http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/mcomemeteorite/ ___ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Chesapeake Bay Crater Drilling Declared Major Success
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-01/usgs-cdd011206.php Public release date: 12-Jan-2006 Contact: Gregory Gohn [EMAIL PROTECTED] 703-648-4382 United States Geological Survey Crater drilling declared major success More than a mile-long core retrieved Following three months of around-the-clock work, the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater Deep Drilling Project successfully completed its operations, extracting more than a mile-long segment of rocks and sediments from the Earth. On Dec. 4, the drill bit reached a final depth of 5,795 ft (1.1 miles, 1.77 kilometers) within the structure of the crater. The impact crater was formed about 35 million years ago when a rock from space struck the Earth at hypersonic speed. Scientists have only recently begun to explore the consequences from that distant event and learn how it has greatly affected the population living in southeastern Virginia today. The drilling project was a major success, said Greg Gohn, a U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist in Reston, Va. We recovered a nearly complete set of core samples from the top of the crater fill to the crater floor. USGS and the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) are the project's sponsors. Gohn is a co-principal investigator of the drilling project, along with Christian Koeberl of the University of Vienna in Austria, Kenneth Miller of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, and Uwe Reimold, at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. This is one of the most complete cores ever obtained in an impact structure, said Koeberl, and will allow us to understand a shallow-marine impact event at an unprecedented level. The team successfully recovered the complete succession of post-impact sediments above the crater, the entire sequence of rocks broken up during the impact, and rocks from the crater floor. These samples will allow the project's international science teams to research the post-impact environment, impact-related processes, and the impact process itself. In addition, the team completed geophysical down-hole logging to collect additional data, such as the temperature gradient within the corehole. Important in this multidisciplinary venture is the analysis of the groundwater reservoir in the Chesapeake Bay impact crater. Findings have direct implications for the millions of people living in the area along Virginia's eastern shore and to future development. Several teams from the U.S. and Europe are investigating the microbial life present in the impact crater, part of intriguing recent studies of life in exotic environments. The post-impact sediments record the recovery of the continental-shelf target area from devastating impact mega-tsunamis to the passive continental shelf and coastal plain that continues today, said Ken Miller, who chairs the Department of Geological Sciences at Rutgers University. Comparison of the section in Virginia with more complete sections sampled in New Jersey and Delaware will yield new insight into global sea-level changes and the distribution of water-bearing units in the coastal plain. The drillsite is located on private land in Northampton County on Virginia's Eastern Shore. The site was chosen because of its location above the central part of the buried crater. Drillsite activities began with extensive site preparations in July 2005. The drill rig arrived in early September, and scientists recovered the first core sample on September 15th. Cores are being stored at the USGS in Reston, VA and will be photographed and documented during the next 3 months. In March 2006 members from all international teams will gather at the USGS to obtain samples of the core for their various studies. ### ICDP and USGS provided the initial funding for the drilling project. The project received supplementary funding in late November from ICDP and USGS, and from the Solar System Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, which allowed drilling to continue into December. The National Science Foundation, Earth Science Division, is supporting the post-impact studies. DOSECC (Drilling, Observation, and Sampling of the Earth's Continental Crust) managed the drillsite operations, and Major Drilling America, Inc. performed the core drilling. DOSECC is a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to provide leadership and technical support in subsurface sampling and monitoring technology for scientific and societal importance. Relevant Web URLs: * ICDP/Chesapeake: http://chesapeake.icdp-online.org * USGS/Chesapeake Crater: http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/crater/ * DOSECC: http://www.dosecc.org/ The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program is a multinational program which funds and supports geosciences in the field of Continental Scientific Drilling. The ICDP has currently a total of 13 member countries and two corporate affiliates. The GFZ Potsdam in Germany serves as Executive Agency for the ICDP. The USGS serves the
[meteorite-list] NASA's Comet Hunter on Final Approach For Sunday Landing
Jan. 12, 2006 Erica Hupp/Merrilee Fellows Headquarters, Washington (202) 358-1237/ (818) 393-0754 D.C. Agle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. (818) 393-9011 RELEASE: 06-028 NASA'S COMET HUNTER ON FINAL APPROACH FOR SUNDAY LANDING NASA's Stardust mission return capsule will land Sunday at approximately 5:12 a.m. EST (3:12 MST) on the Utah Test and Training Range. Stardust is completing a 2.88 billion mile round-trip odyssey to capture and return cometary and interstellar dust particles to Earth. The spacecraft performs its last maneuver to put it on the correct path to enter the atmosphere tomorrow at 11:53 p.m. EST (9:53 p.m. MST). The speed of the capsule, as it enters the atmosphere at 28,860 mph, will be the fastest ever of any human-made object, surpassing the record set in May 1969 by the returning Apollo 10 command module. The capsule will release a parachute at approximately 105,000 feet and descend to the salt flats. Weather permitting, it will be recovered by helicopter teams and taken to a clean room at the Michael Army Airfield, Dugway Proving Ground for initial processing. Stardust launched on Feb. 7, 1999, and encountered comet Wild 2 on Jan. 2, 2004. It flew less than 150 miles from the comet's nucleus to capture tiny grains of dust. During the voyage, the spacecraft captured bits of interstellar dust streaming into the solar system from other parts of the galaxy. Scientists believe these precious samples will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the solar system. For Stardust information on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/stardust NASA TV coverage starts Sunday at 4:30 a.m. EST (6:30 a.m. MST) on the Public (101), Education (102) and Media (103) channels. NASA TV is available on an MPEG-2 digital C-band signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska and Hawaii, it's available on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization. For NASA TV information and schedules on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv -end- __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Ad 2.4g Zagami on Ebay
I have a 2.4323g chunk of the Zagami meteorite on Ebay. This specimen is of the rarer coarse lithology (only about 20% of the stone) and has nice shinny black fusion crust. This specimen is half of the 5 gram piece that was sold from the Elbert King collection. Thanks, Derek. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=6594896080 __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Aerogel Helps Scientists Unravel Mysteries of Comets
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/exploringtheuniverse/aerogel.html John Bluck NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. Phone: 650/604-5026 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aerogel Helps Scientists Unravel Mysteries of Comets January 10, 2006 Strange stuff called 'aerogel' that looks like a semi-transparent, blue cloud, but that is solid, is carrying captured comet dust to Earth for a Jan. 15, 2006, landing in a Utah desert. In January 2004, the Stardust spacecraft flew within 147 miles (236 kilometers) of the comet Wild 2 (VILT-TWO) and survived the high-speed impact of millions of dust particles and small rocks up to nearly two-tenths of an inch (one-half centimeter) across. With its tennis-racket-shaped collector extended, Stardust captured thousands of comet particles in the see-through aerogel, which includes silica and oxygen. It's a little bit like collecting BBs by shooting them into Styrofoam, said Scott Sandford, an astrophysicist and Stardust mission co-investigator based at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. Some of the grains are likely to have exotic isotopic ratios that will give us an indication that we're looking at materials that aren't as old as the solar system, but that are, in fact, older than the solar system, Sandford asserted. Another mission objective was to expose the spacecraft to the interstellar dust stream for 150 days to grab particles. After collecting them, the aerogel collector retracted into the spacecraft's capsule. Stardust will be the first mission to capture and return a substantial sample from outside Earth's moon system. Making sure that precious comet and interstellar particles imbedded in the aerogel are not affected by earthly contaminants was an important task to complete before the Stardust spacecraft was launched on Feb. 7, 1999, from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida. aboard a Delta II rocket. Under Dr. Sandford's guidance, I performed the lab analysis of the aerogel using infrared (IR) light to determine the level of organic contamination, said Max Bernstein, a scientist at NASA Ames. These and other preliminary lab tests ultimately led the Stardust aerogel development team to devise a bake-vacuum-bake cycle to reduce the carbon content in aerogel, Bernstein said. Aerogel is made mostly of sand (silica), and what we're interested in is the organic material in the cometary samples, Bernstein said. We measured organic contamination in aerogel early on. We raised a concern, and Peter Tsou and the aerogel team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., devised a method to reduce carbon content in aerogel by a factor of 10. Infrared light that astronomers use to detect organic molecules in space also can be used to measure organic molecules in the laboratory. In their laboratory, Ames scientists shined IR light though a piece of an early batch of test aerogel, and they saw organic contamination. Because infrared is light that is not visible to the human eye, scientists use special detectors to 'see' IR. If scientists detect a specific IR color scheme, they can tell that a specific molecular fragment is moving and is present in the sample of material they are examining. If you understand that color scheme, then when you make the measurement, you can say, 'ah hah, I spotted colors corresponding to a carbon-hydrogen motion, so there must be carbons and hydrogen in the aerogel, not just silicon and oxygen,' Bernstein explained. Thanks in part to our measurements, we now have cleaner aerogel, which is flying on the Stardust spacecraft. In cooperation with Bernstein, graduate student Maegan K. Spencer of Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., is conducting more sophisticated aerogel organic contamination tests in the laboratories of Stanford Professor Richard Zare. The returning Stardust capsule will strike Earth's atmosphere at eight miles (12.8 kilometers) per second - more than 20 times faster than a speeding bullet. That is fast enough to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles in only one minute. The 101-pound (45.7 kilogram) conical object will hurtle through the atmosphere and slow before the spacecraft finally parachutes down to Earth in a Utah dry lake. The landing will occur on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006, at about 3 a.m. MST, in a restricted area - the Utah Test and Training Range, located southwest of Salt Lake City. There will be a team of scientists at Johnson Space Center who will assess what we actually got back from the comet so we can verify we did get a useful sample, Sandford said. A small portion of the samples will then be used to make a preliminary study of the returned material. After the preliminary examination is complete, all the samples will be made available to the general scientific community for more detailed study. My guess is people will be asking for and working on these samples for decades to come. __ Meteorite-list mailing list
[meteorite-list] Meteor Lights Up The Morning Skies in Idaho
http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-jan1206-meteor_sighting.6f734dcd.html Meteor lights up the morning skies Mike Vogel KTVB NewsChannel 7 January 12, 2006 BOISEE -- It happened early Thursday morning around 7:15 a.m. A very bright meteor lit up the skies and streaked across the horizon. NewsChannel 7 spoke with several of the people who witnessed it. We had numerous calls here at the station from people who saw it. Police dispatch also took several calls, and even one person in the Boise Airport tower saw it. And though the eyewitness accounts vary slightly, they are all consistent with it being a meteor. I was driving north on Bogus Basin, and I looked up in the sky and there was fireworks coming down, said Jacqueline Correnti. When Jacqueline Correnti looked up in the sky this morning she couldn't believe her eyes. I only saw it for a second or two,' said Correnti. A meteor in the skies above the Treasure Valley going west to east. Between where those two clouds are, it was right in the middle of it, and heading that way it was, if I were going out to reach and grab it, it was a good volleyball size, said Correnti. This was definitely not a falling star; the tail on it was bright blue and pretty thick. I've seen Hailey's Comet in the sky, but that is so far away. this was like, this was closer than what an airplane would be. I was so excited, I got goose bumps. Across town in southeast Boise, Libby Hood saw the same thing. I saw it for a good ten seconds it was phenomenal. Was coming home and the bright light from this object in the sky caught my attention and it was low enough here above the roof line, I was just about to pull into the driveway and a flash kind of caught my eye, and I looked over to the left and I seen this ball of fire with a tail behind it, kind of at a gradual descent, said Hood. At first she thought it might be a plane going down. I verbally remember myself saying, 'oh my gosh,' because it was that I looked, and I looked again, and just watched this thing go across the sky, and it was so low. Pretty amazing, pretty phenomenal to witness that, said Hood. Experts from the Boise Astronomical Society say that if the it did hit the ground, the meteorite would likely be smaller than a walnut. And although it's unclear if anyone saw it land, considering its size, it is highly unlikely anyone would ever find it. But if anyone did find it, meteorites are worth a lot of money. Some put their value at about the same as gold. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Meteor Lights Up The Morning Skies in Idaho
Howdy If anyone decides to go looking for this one, drop me a line. I seem to have some remote imagery of the meteor. Traveling out to Idaho from DC rates pretty low on the feasability scale right now, though. Cheers, MDF http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-jan1206-meteor_sighting.6f734dcd.html Meteor lights up the morning skies Mike Vogel KTVB NewsChannel 7 January 12, 2006 BOISEE -- It happened early Thursday morning around 7:15 a.m. A very bright meteor lit up the skies and streaked across the horizon. NewsChannel 7 spoke with several of the people who witnessed it. We had numerous calls here at the station from people who saw it. Police dispatch also took several calls, and even one person in the Boise Airport tower saw it. And though the eyewitness accounts vary slightly, they are all consistent with it being a meteor. I was driving north on Bogus Basin, and I looked up in the sky and there was fireworks coming down, said Jacqueline Correnti. When Jacqueline Correnti looked up in the sky this morning she couldn't believe her eyes. I only saw it for a second or two,' said Correnti. A meteor in the skies above the Treasure Valley going west to east. Between where those two clouds are, it was right in the middle of it, and heading that way it was, if I were going out to reach and grab it, it was a good volleyball size, said Correnti. This was definitely not a falling star; the tail on it was bright blue and pretty thick. I've seen Hailey's Comet in the sky, but that is so far away. this was like, this was closer than what an airplane would be. I was so excited, I got goose bumps. Across town in southeast Boise, Libby Hood saw the same thing. I saw it for a good ten seconds it was phenomenal. Was coming home and the bright light from this object in the sky caught my attention and it was low enough here above the roof line, I was just about to pull into the driveway and a flash kind of caught my eye, and I looked over to the left and I seen this ball of fire with a tail behind it, kind of at a gradual descent, said Hood. At first she thought it might be a plane going down. I verbally remember myself saying, 'oh my gosh,' because it was that I looked, and I looked again, and just watched this thing go across the sky, and it was so low. Pretty amazing, pretty phenomenal to witness that, said Hood. Experts from the Boise Astronomical Society say that if the it did hit the ground, the meteorite would likely be smaller than a walnut. And although it's unclear if anyone saw it land, considering its size, it is highly unlikely anyone would ever find it. But if anyone did find it, meteorites are worth a lot of money. Some put their value at about the same as gold. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Marc Fries Postdoctoral Research Associate Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory 5251 Broad Branch Rd. NW Washington, DC 20015 PH: 202 478 7970 FAX: 202 478 8901 - I urge you to show your support to American servicemen and servicewomen currently serving in harm's way by donating items they personally request at: http://www.anysoldier.com (This is not an endorsement by the Geophysical Laboratory or the Carnegie Institution.) __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
