Category Archives: Space Collecting

Mars, Space Collecting, Space Science

“Black Beauty” – a watery meteorite from Mars

In this video from the SETI Institute‘s weekly seminar series, Carl B. Agee of the University of New Mexico talks about a special meteorite from Mars:

Caption:

Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034 is a new type of martian meteorite discovered in Morocco in 2011. NWA 7034 aka “Black Beauty”, nicknamed for its dark shiny appearance, contains ten times more water than other martian meteorites. This combined with its oxidation state which is highest among martian meteorites, its anomalous oxygen isotope values, and its early Amazonian age, make it an extraordinarily valuable specimen for understanding surface processes, aqueous alteration, and atmosphere/lithosphere exchange reactions that existed on Mars ~2 billion years ago.

Agee will show that Black Beauty appears to be the first martian meteorite to match the surface geochemistry of Mars, as seen by landers and orbiters, and as such, it has particular relevance to the current Mars Science Laboratory mission at Gale Crater.

Asteroids & Comets, Space Collecting

Astronauts sell space memorabilia to support asteroid observatory

The B612 Foundation is raising money for their asteroid finding space observatory by selling memorabilia from Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart and Shuttle/ISS astronaut Ed Lu:

Here is a new video message from Ed Lu: Ed Lu’s Message: Why You Should Support Sentinel – B612 Foundation

Asteroids & Comets, Space Collecting

Rare meteorite turned up in farmer’s field

That strange rock you come across might be from outer space : Farmers’ Rock Turns Out to Be Rare Meteorite | Arlington, Minn. Meteorite – Space.com

On May 30, the couple brought their find to Alexander’s lab and allowed him to chip 0.02 ounces (0.6 grams) off the edge of it for analysis under a scanning electron microscope. The rock was iron, and contained about 8 percent nickel — a telltale giveaway. Iron objects on Earth contain almost no nickel, but iron rocks from space are usually between 5 and 20 percent nickel. The microscope also revealed what’s called a Widmanstätten pattern of nickel-iron crystals that’s unique to meteorites

Asteroids & Comets, Space Collecting

Chunk of Chelyabinsk meteorite said to be found in lake

A part of the meteorite that came from the great fireball over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia back in February has been found at the bottom of a lake: Huge Chunk of Meteorite Located in Urals Lake – RIA Novosti

History, Space Collecting

Rock found in Massachusetts is Russian spacecraft debris

A Massachusetts man found a rock by a river near his house that turned out to be ballast from a Soviet/Russian spacecraft, possibly the Mir space station: