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Re: Greenland

Sharkkb8@aol.com wrote:

> Greenland, Dec 9, 1997  -  remember THAT?!   Sure has been "upstaged" by a
> certain Texas meteorite story......!
> I checked in with the Danish Center for Remote sensing (site below),
>
> http://www.dcrs.dtu.dk/DCRS/Other_topics/meteo.html#LN
>
> but the latest post they have is from this past February.  (reprinted below)
> Does anyone have any, more current, info?
>

     Well, this was reported by Reuters on May 7, 1998, but I haven't
heard anything else.
__________________________
11:47 AM ET 05/07/98

Solar system birth clues seen in Greenland meteorite


            COPENHAGEN, Denmark (Reuters) - A Danish expedition will go
to Greenland in July to search for fragments of a meteorite that
crashed to the ground last December, hoping to find clues to the
birth of the solar system.
            ``It was a blazing meteorite...that lit up the night sky and
fragmented over the southwestern part of the Greenland icecap,''
the Tycho Brahe Planetarium astronomy center said in a
statement.
            Astronomer Lars Lindberg Christensen, a member of the
expedition, said that the Greenland meteorite was likely to have
been the size of a private car.
            ``We believe that this was a very big meteorite,'' he told
Reuters. The object from outer space had probably been a
so-called stone meteorite -- one of three main categories of
meteorites, he said.
            Traces of more than 10,000 meteorites have been found on
earth. The Greenland find is special because it is one of the
few that was actually seen falling down.
            The Tycho Brahe center has over one hundred eyewitness
reports, three seconds of video-tape and data from a U.S.
defense satellite of the meteorite's plunge through the earth's
atmosphere.
            So far it has been possible to calculate the orbits of just
four meteorites crashing down on earth, Christensen said.
Advanced computer technology and mathematics were currently
being applied on the information collected to determine the
Greenland meteorite's orbit, he said.
            Because the fragments had landed on ice, any pieces found
would be ``nearly pure and not contaminated,'' as was often the
case with meteorites found in forests or agricultural areas, he
said.
            The stone material believed to have composed the Greenland
meteorite would be different from any stone or rock found on
earth.
            ``The fragments can provide clues to the birth of the solar
system,'' Christensen said.
            The four-man expedition, made up of a polar scientist, an
astronomer, an electronics engineer and a mountain climber,
planned to spend up to four weeks in Greenland.
            Meteorite fragments found by the expedition would be sent to
the Geological Museum in Copenhagen for analyses. Some collected
material would also be sent to research institutes in other
countries.
 ^REUTERS@
________________

Mike

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Mike DiMuzio    mdimuzio@cisnet.com
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