When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration declared last month that the evidence for water on Mars was mounting, Mike Moore was probably one of the least surprised people in the world. Thirty years ago Moore discovered what he came to believe is a meteor from Mars, a claim that science has not accepted. Among many subsequent studies and tests on the object, he found a small rock inside a soluble mantle of dirt.
January 3rd, 2004
French scientists find rare Martian meteorite
Two French scientists said on Saturday they believed they had discovered a rare meteorite from Mars which could shed light on the red planet’s geological makeup and volcanic activity. A team led by Carine Bidaut and Bruno Fectay found two chunks of meteorite weighing 414 and 383 grammes (14.6 and 15.5 ounces) respectively in the Atlas mountains of southern Morocco in January and March 2001.
September 16th, 2003
Renovated Hall of Meteorites to Reopen
The newly renovated Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites is reopening Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History, allowing visitors to again come in contact with objects as old as the sun. “We display some of the first rocks formed in the solar system,” said Denton Ebel, curator of the hall.
August 14th, 2003
Chunk of Mars Meteorite to Be Auctioned
For anyone who’s ever wanted a souvenir from Mars without the hassles of traveling there, here’s their chance. A Lincoln company is auctioning off part of the famous Mars meteorite Zagami, which fell to Earth Oct. 3, 1962, in central Nigeria. Bids for the fragment, which weighs about 6.6 ounces and is about the size of a soda can, begin at $450,000 when the online auction starts Sept. 5 on the Internet site eBay.
July 23rd, 2003
Red planet rock to wow crowds icBirmingham
A fist sized chunk of Mars rock will be flown to Birmingham next month amid tight security to give that other world feel to the city’s astronomy week celebrations. The piece of Martian meteorite, insured for
July 5th, 2003
Meteorite helps Caltech student prove his thesis Pasadena Star-News
Six years ago, Ben Weiss spent all night slicing the oldest rock on Earth into pieces the size of a child’s fingernail. The precious slivers of dark brown meteorite offered Weiss, then a first-year Caltech graduate student, a chance to delve into the most hotly contested debate in geology: whether a potato-size piece of Mars blasted from the red planet 15 million years ago carried remnants of Martian life to Earth.
March 20th, 2003
Houston Reports: Martian Meteorites NEO Information Centre
Today at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston Dr Jim Head presented new results to suggest that about one rock from Mars falls on Earth each month. Head
February 6th, 2003
New meteorite gallery includes rare pieces of solar system The Dallas Morning News
Oscar Monnig used to pay anyone who brought him a meteorite. This week, the new Monnig Meteorite Gallery opens on the campus of Texas Christian University. The museum showcases decades of work by the Fort Worth businessman, who died in 1999. There is one meteorite from the moon, and three from Mars. Also, a basketball-sized chunk of the rock that blasted Meteor Crater in northern Arizona. And a piece of the meteorite that crumpled a car’s trunk in Peekskill, N.Y., in 1992.
November 18th, 2002
Out-Of-This-World Auction Offers Otherworldly Items
Pieces of what an auction organizer called some of the most exotically expensive real estate on the planet were offered to bidders. A tiny piece of a Martian meteorite weighing 0.44 gram was bought Sunday for $1,000 by an Internet bidder who was not identified.
November 12th, 2002
Mars meteors more common than thought Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Martian meteorites can reach Earth much more easily than first suspected, according to a new U.S.-Russian study, strengthening the case for theories that life on Earth may have originated on the red planet. High resolution computer simulations by Dr James Head of the University of Arizona in the U.S. and Professor Boris Ivanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences has found that even small impacts on Mars