Meteorite

COLOMA-LOTUS VALLEY, Calif — In the week since a fireball shot across the sky and exploded, scattering a rare type of meteorite over California's Gold Country, these hills have drawn a new rush of treasure seekers. Once again there are lively saloons, fortune hunters jockeying for prime spots and astounding tales of luck — including that of Brenda Salveson, a local who found a valuable space rock while walking her dog Sheldon, named after the theoretical physicist on the TV show "The Big Bang Theory.

MOSCOW -- It shattered windows and injured thousands, but to plenty of people in the central Russian region of Chelyabinsk, the powerful meteorite explosion that rocked the area last week was more than a disaster. It was a cash cow. As service workers and volunteers continue to work around the clock to fix thousands of windows shattered by the shock waves from the explosion, many of their friends and neighbors are taking time off from work and school to look for parts of the meteorite that are believed to be scattered all over the region.

MOSCOW -- It shattered windows and injured thousands, but to plenty of people in the central Russian region of Chelyabinsk, the powerful meteorite explosion that rocked the area last week was more than a disaster. It was a cash cow. As service workers and volunteers continue to work around the clock to fix thousands of windows shattered by the shock waves from the explosion, many of their friends and neighbors are taking time off from work and school to look for parts of the meteorite that are believed to be scattered all over the region.

The cold, dead asteroid Vesta might have had a very active inner life early in the solar system's history, according to an unusual analysis of a Saharan meteorite. Vesta might have had a magma ocean underneath its rocky exterior, allowing bits of mineral to rise and fall between softer and harder layers of material, according to a study published online Sunday by the journal Nature Geoscience. If confirmed, that would make it more like Earth and the solar system's other rocky planets than scientists had realized.

Another meteorite from Mars has been discovered in Antarctica, one of only about 30 known Martian space rocks on Earth. What makes this rock special is its comparatively large size, said Timothy J. McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian Institution. "It's a 700-gram rock [about 1 1/2 pounds] but by meteorite standards it's a mountain of material," he said.

A mile-wide crater in Nebraska thought to have been formed by a meteorite actually was produced by wind, researchers from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln said. The Bartak Depression, named for the family on whose land it is located, was identified in 1992. Kansas researchers said it was made by a meteorite, probably about 1,000 years ago--a conclusion that received much attention in the media because it would represent the most recent major meteor impact.

A meteorite believed to have come from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter sold for $93,000 at an auction of rare space sculptures. The 355-pound chunk of iron, thousands of years old and discovered in the Campo del Cielo crater field in Argentina, was one of 10 meteorites that went for high prices at a Bonhams' New York natural history auction.

So scientists have discovered that a piece of rock in Antarctica is really a meteorite from Mars (Aug. 7)! A MARS Microscopic ALH Organism, to be exact--or shall we say MARSMALHO for short? This would explain the "coal" association. Probably just another friendly intergalactic MARSMALHO roast over volcanic charcoal. Finding some Hydrocarbon Oxidized Trajectory-Dispersed Organic Geoplasm (HOT DOG for short) in the same location would prove it. BONNIE HANSON Santa Ana The management of NASA is excited and taking credit after spending billions of dollars for men in space with no important results, while examination of a meteorite for only a few thousand dollars contains indications of early life from Mars.

The cold, dead asteroid Vesta might have had a very active inner life early in the solar system's history, according to an unusual analysis of a Saharan meteorite. Vesta might have had a magma ocean underneath its rocky exterior, allowing bits of mineral to rise and fall between softer and harder layers of material, according to a study published online Sunday by the journal Nature Geoscience. If confirmed, that would make it more like Earth and the solar system's other rocky planets than scientists had realized.

Not to be too corny about this, but the thing the Del Mar Fair is selling is passion. Everywhere you look, somebody is describing/pushing/tending something they're madly in love with. A prized pig, a revered rose, a magic potato peeler that doubles as a surgical instrument, the ultimate cinnamon roll, even the voices of the carnies vibrate with urgency. But even by these aroused standards, Bruce Wegmann stands alone.

Scientists have identified what they believe to be the first meteorite to originate from the Martian crust, a 2.1-billion-year-old specimen that contains about 10 times more water than any other space rock from the Red Planet. Discovered in the Sahara, the rock - called NWA 7034 - is unlike any of the 110-odd Martian meteorites yet found on Earth, according to a report published online Thursday by the journal Science. Experts said it provided an unprecedented close-up view of the Martian surface and may help scientists understand what NASA's Curiosity and Opportunity rovers are seeing as they roam the terrain.

The fireball that streaked through the skies on April 22 and exploded with the equivalent of four kilotons of TNT and fell around Sutter's Mill, birthplace of the California Gold Rush. Scientists and meteor hunters alike quickly hunted down a few of the fallen fragments just before rain hit, allowing them an unprecedented look at the most pristine sample of a rare type of carbon-rich asteroid yet found. Now a study published in Friday's edition of the journal Science shows that all that hustle paid off. The Sutter's Mill meteor shows chemical evidence of a complex formation history -- evidence that would have been wiped out by the rain, said lead author Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute in Mountain View.

Blasted into space by a collision with an asteroid, the jagged hunk of Mars rock tumbled silently through the solar system for 7,000 centuries. Finally, on July 18, 2011, the rock's long journey ended as violently as it had begun: It plunged to Earth as a fireball that illuminated the Moroccan night, awakening soldiers and nomads with a sonic boom. One eyewitness said it turned from yellow to green before it finally split in two and vanished from view. Such was the dramatic arrival of the so-called Tissint meteorite, named for a village where pieces fell.

An up-close look at the protoplanet Vesta taken by the Dawn spacecraft reveals signs of water on this oversized asteroid in the middle of the solar system, scientists reported Thursday in the journal Science. Vesta floats in the middle of the asteroid belt that fills the gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. That doughnut of rocky rubble might have coalesced into a whole planet if Jupiter's gravity hadn't gotten in the way. Instead, Vesta's growth was stunted at the protoplanet stage.

As the director of the University of New Mexico's Institute of Meteoritics, Carl Agee gets tons of calls, packages and emails from people claiming to have had the rare experience of actually finding a meteorite. Sadly for Agee, most are merely terrestrial rocks, what he calls meteor-wrongs. Then he met 13-year-old Jansen Lyons. Two weeks ago, the teenager walked into the institute - his mother in tow - carrying what he said was a 2-pound hunk of space rock he found at an undisclosed location in the Albuquerque suburb of Rio Rancho.

Water, water, everywhere. Earlier this week , astronomers found a pocket of water at the bottom of a crater at the moon's south pole. Now, another team has found unexpectedly large amounts of water in Martian rocks blasted to Earth by meteors striking that planet's surface. A team from the Carnegie Institution of Washington reported in the journal Geology that they found the water in meteorites from two different locations on Mars' surface and that the amounts are similar to what might be found on Earth.

Bruce Wegmann was bored--laid up for a year with a back injury--when he started rummaging through old boxes and found a meteorite he had bought as an 11-year-old visitor to Arizona's Meteor Crater. It sparked a trip to the library for research and launched a passion that left his 10-year career as a machinist in the dust. Now well-versed in meteorites, the 36-year-old Wegmann is a fixture at local gem and mineral shows .

Meteorite bombardment: In Section A on June 7, an article about a meteorite barrage that may have provided ingredients for life on Earth said that the meteorites may have been stripped of "oxygen- and water-rich outer layers" by "frictional heat" as they entered the atmosphere. It should have said carbon dioxide instead of oxygen; and the heat from such events is caused not by friction but by "ram pressure," in which compression heats air around the meteorite.

COLOMA-LOTUS VALLEY, Calif — In the week since a fireball shot across the sky and exploded, scattering a rare type of meteorite over California's Gold Country, these hills have drawn a new rush of treasure seekers. Once again there are lively saloons, fortune hunters jockeying for prime spots and astounding tales of luck — including that of Brenda Salveson, a local who found a valuable space rock while walking her dog Sheldon, named after the theoretical physicist on the TV show "The Big Bang Theory.

The first dust samples ever retrieved from an asteroid and brought back for study show that a portion of the most common meteorites to hit Earth may have come from a single rocky ancestor in space, Japanese researchers say. In a wide-ranging analysis of tiny fragments collected from the asteroid Itokawa during a spacecraft visit in 2005, six studies by several teams of scientists released Thursday by the journal Science piece together a detailed...