[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

MONAHANS

Hello everyone, we're still in South Florida. Thought you
might enjoy this.

Making a splash

Monahans meteorite delivers to scientists the first
known extraterrestrial water found on Earth

03/29/99

By Alexandra Witze / The Dallas Morning News

HOUSTON - The meteorite that fell in West Texas a year ago, startling
boys playing basketball in Monahans, is now startling scientists as
well.

The rock contains the first extraterrestrial water ever found on Earth,
trapped inside purple salt crystals, researchers announced this month.

"This is very exciting," said Michael Zolensky of NASA's Johnson Space
Center in Houston. He described his team's findings at a recent
planetary science meeting in Houston.

After a long trip through space, the meteorite fell to Earth in several
pieces on March 22, 1998. Within 72 hours, scientists had borrowed one
piece and broken it open at the space center.
In it they discovered purple crystals of halite - the same mineral that
makes up table salt - measuring up to 3 millimeters long. Halite has
been found before in meteorites, but usually it's so tiny or colorless
as to be nearly unnoticeable, said Dr. Zolensky.

The Monahans crystals probably got their color when radioactive elements
decayed nearby; the radiation turned the halite purple, he added.

As odd as the halite was, "the really amazing thing was that we found
fluid inclusions," he said.

Inside the salt crystals were trapped little pockets of fluid, some with
bubbles still intact. Those pockets have been there almost since the
meteorite itself formed, an estimated 4.7 billion years ago.

Water must once have trickled through an asteroid, Dr. Zolensky said,
then become trapped in salt crystals as they formed. Later, another
space rock slammed into the asteroid, chipping off pieces - one of which
eventually landed in Monahans, its water and scientific importance
intact.

The researchers are now trying to study the fluid with X-rays so they
don't have to break into the water yet, Dr. Zolensky said.

NASA scientists still have about 150 grams of the halite left to study.
The meteorite itself was returned to Monahans, where the largest piece
was sold to a Big Spring resident for $23,000 in an Internet auction
last year.


                           oxoxoxoxoxoxo, Mike Casper and
                   "THE TRAVELING METEORITE ROAD SHOW"




Casper Meteorites, Inc.
P. O. Drawer J
Ithaca, New York  14851
USA
607-257-5349 (phone)
607-266-7904 (fax)
email: casper@meteorites.com
<http://www.meteorites.com>

----------
Archives located at:
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/list_best.html

For help, FAQ's and sub. info. visit:
http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing_list.html
----------