[meteorite-list] More Pieces of Mars Found

From: Walter Branch <waltbranch_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:00 2004
Message-ID: <002c01c1ada2$22e932e0$d25dbfa8_at_cc516468a>

>About eight percent of meteorites are
>bits of the moon, shot to Earth by the same impacts that >created the
moon's pocked surface.

Eight percent are lunar?

Ummmm.....

-Walter

-----------------------------------------------
Walter Branch, Ph.D.
Branch Meteorites
322 Stephenson Ave., Suite B
Savannah, GA 31405 USA
www.branchmeteorites.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 11:51 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] More Pieces of Mars Found


>
>
> http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020128/meteorite.html
>
> More Pieces of Mars Found
> By Larry O'Hanlon
> Discovery News
> January 28, 2002
>
> Jan. 28 - Five more chunks of the planet Mars have turned up on Earth,
> report meteorite scientists who plan on presenting their discoveries at a
> scientific meeting in March.
>
> In all, the new meteorites bring the count to 24 fragments of the Red
Planet
> have been found on Earth after being blasted off the Red Planet by impacts
> of asteroids or comets. Reports on the new interplanetary fragments will
be
> presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas.
>
> "There is an unusual number of Antarctic Mars meteorites being reported,"
> remarks Ron Baalke of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who keeps count of
> Martian meteorites.
>
> The reason? "People are out there hunting like crazy," said Marilyn
> Lindstrom, who served for years as the meteorite curator at NASA's Johnson
> Space Flight Center.
>
> The bulk of the new discoveries are by Japanese and Chinese scientists.
The
> Japanese meteorite hunters were particularly overdue for a Martian
> meteorite, she said, because they have been hunting for years and found
> about 4,000 meteorites of other types.
>
> Just a fraction of one percent of all meteorites is Martian, Lindstrom
said.
> The majority of meteorites are pieces of asteroids and other debris that
> never was part of a planetary body. About eight percent of meteorites are
> bits of the moon, shot to Earth by the same impacts that created the
moon's
> pocked surface.
>
> Although the newest members of the Martian meteorite family are mostly
from
> Antarctica, there is also one Saharan meteorite. Sandy deserts and
> Antarctica are good places for finding meteorites because the space rocks
> stand out from the bare surroundings.
>
> All of the new meteorites are thought to be from Mars because of their
> telltale peculiar iron-manganese and oxygen isotope compositions. These
> chemical signs tie the rocks to the first discovered Martian meteorites
that
> contain small bubbles of Martian atmosphere - the surest sign that a
> meteorite is from Mars.
>
> Because meteorites are the only actual samples scientists have from the
> fourth planet, they are considered invaluable.
>
> "Basically a lot of the understanding of how Mars evolved comes from the
> rocks," Lindstrom said. "We're having a look into the Martian crust."
>
> Plans are already underway by the European Space Agency for a mission to
> Mars that will bring back samples to Earth for study. Until then, however,
> the meteorites and images from spacecraft are the only clues to Mars'
> history.
>
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Received on Mon 04 Feb 2002 12:34:00 PM PST