Tag Archives: meteorites

Across the Universe: Featureless Features

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This entry is part 93 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

At the end of September 2016, Rosetta finally ended its mission by crashing into its comet. This column, about an earlier aspect of the Rosetta mission, first appeared in The Tablet in October 2010; we first ran it here in 2016.   Back in July [2010], ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, en route to a comet rendezvous in 2014, flew past asteroid Lutetia, a 100 km pile of rock orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. The result of that encounter was a hot topic of both the European Planetary Science Conference in Rome in September and a meeting of American planetary astronomers in Pasadena in October [2010]. Studying asteroids has always been challenging. Even in the largest telescopes they’re mere dots of light, too small to show any shapes, much less surface details. We can only infer their nature from the most subtle of hints: how their brightness varies as they spin, how much infrared light they radiate, their visible and infrared colours. Minerals that contain … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Words that Change Reality

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This entry is part 38 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

My columns for The Tablet often act as a diary of sorts, recording important events in science or in my own life. Such is this column, which first ran in September, 2006. We first ran it here in 2015. Ten years ago last month [as of 2006 – now 23 years ago!], Dave McKay and his colleagues at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston announced that a meteorite, believed to have come from Mars, showed evidence of microbial life. Their interpretations are still widely disputed by the meteoritics community. But, oddly, their announcement resulted in one major change of attitudes. Before, there were still skeptics who were not sure that those rocks came from Mars; now, as the skeptics argue about the putative biogenic grains found in it, no one doubts the Martian origin anymore! Some of us can only be skeptical of one thing at a time, I guess. Still, what you call the meteorite doesn’t really change its … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Relics of Space

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This entry is part 1 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

This column from The Tablet first ran there in September 2018… I have altered it slightly to bring it up to date. The famous American cynic H. L. Mencken once asserted that every question had an answer that was “neat, plausible, and wrong.” Science is no different. Our meteorite collections have reddish “ordinary” meteorites and black “carbonaceous” ones; meanwhile, in space we see some asteroids with reddish surfaces, while others are pitch black. The connection between the meteorites and the asteroids is thus neat and plausible. But is it right? The holy grail in asteroids is finding the ones with water and carbon. If we are going to be a space-faring species, we’ll need those chemicals to feed us and power our spacecraft. The cost to bring them up to space with us from Earth makes these materials far more valuable than platinum or gold.  We know that some carbonaceous meteorites have carbon and water; and they are distinctively black. … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists: Fr. Domenico Troili S.J. (1722-1792), Meteoriticist

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This entry is part 7 of 9 in the series Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church

Today, I get to indulge in a couple topics that are important to me: meteorites and Jesuits. There are a few modern points of intersection of the two topics, including Br. Guy Consolmagno, Fr. Cyril Opeil, and myself. For this entry, however, we go back in time a couple of centuries to Fr. Domenico Troili, who lent his name to one of the most common minerals found in meteorites. Troili was a former pupil of the Fr. Roger Boscovich S.J. at the Roman College. (Boscovich is another religious scientist who will be discussed in a future blog post for his contribution to atomic theory.) He later became the curator of the Este family library in Modena, Italy. He witnessed the fall of a meteorite over Albareto, Italy in 1766. He took pains to document eyewitness accounts and collect specimens of the Albareto meteorite. This makes him the first person to formally document a meteorite fall, in Ragionamento della Caduta di un … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Help My Unbelief

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This entry is part 35 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

This column was published in The Tablet in August, 2007, and first ran here in 2015 We believe in things we don’t see — like electrons, or black holes — because they let us make sense of things we do see. But sometimes we don’t believe, even when we see. The question of what we believe, and why we believe in it, struck me particularly at the [2007] annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society. A French mathematician has analyzed the dates meteorites have been seen to fall over the past 200 years and found clear trends, at the 90% confidence level: more meteorites than usual tend to fall every 3 years, every 10 years, and every 17 years. His analysis is standard, straightforward stuff; but I don’t believe it. Nor did anyone else in the audience. Two hundred years just doesn’t seem long enough to show such periodicities. And we’ve been burned before with theories that had only a 10% … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Key to the Sea and Sky

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This entry is part 30 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in July 2007; we first ran it here in 2015.   In Alicante, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, a group of us planetary astronomers held a workshop [in 2007] on how asteroids respond to the massive collisions that can lead to their catastrophic disruption. Just north of us, in Valencia, sailors from Switzerland and New Zealand were vying for the America’s Cup. The connection between elegant million dollar yachts and exploding asteroids. is the equations of fluid dynamics. I’ve loved sailing since my childhood. I spent my summers capsizing sailboards on Lake Huron and my winters reading too much Arthur Ransome. As a student in the early 1970s I competed on MIT’s sailing team (the Charles River was indeed “dirty water” especially back then), and attended lectures in their ocean engineering department on the challenges of designing the best shape for a hull that could slip through the water with a minimum of friction while … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: One Fix Leads to Another

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This entry is part 20 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

First published in The Tablet in February, 2007; we first ran it here in 2016. I’ve moved it to March, this year, to fit the Lenten season. With my colleague Dan Britt from the University of Central Florida, for several years I’ve been measuring the densities and porosities of meteorites. The densities of different meteorite classes can be compared with their parent asteroids, to see how loosely packed they are; and the porosity of these rocks is an indication of how thoroughly their fabric has been cracked by the shock of the impacts that shattered those parent bodies. We started with the collection I curate at the Vatican; but there are many meteorite types that are underrepresented there. When I came to New York [in 2007] for a year’s sabbatical at Fordham University, I had hoped to extend our data by looking at the nearby American Museum of Natural History’s extensive collection. But things got off to a slow start. … Continue reading →

Gems, Minerals,… and Meteorites!

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Every year, from the end of January until about mid-February, Tucson hosts the annual Tucson Gem & Mineral Show.  Many cities host gem shows, most often occupying a large ballroom, convention space, or meeting hall.  At such shows, collectors and dealers display and sell colorful rocks and minerals, fossils, jewelry, and geological specimens of all types.  What makes the Tucson show unique is its size.  As Ed Sullivan would say, it is a “reallybig shew.” Tucson hosts not just one show, but just under fifty of them, spread around various locations throughout the city.  Practically every motel and vacant lot around town is transformed into a marketplace, each filled with vendors from all over the world peddling their wares. I have come to Tucson every year for the gem show ever since I took on the job of meteorite curator at the Vatican Observatory, for one simple reason–such an event also draws in those who buy and sell meteorites.  This … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – February 5, 2019

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This entry is part 81 of 123 in the series In the Sky This Week

I would just like to say that the volunteers from the Warren Astronomical Society are simply the best! Two different groups collectively froze their posteriors off running Lunar Eclipse outreach events at Stargate Observatory and assisting Cranbrook Institute of Science with their event, which saw several hundred guests! As Venus moves down towards the horizon, the several weeks-long conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the star Antares in the southeastern predawn sky is slowly spreading apart. The Moon reappears in the southwestern sky as a waxing crescent later in the week – keep an eye out for earthshine! The Moon appears near Mars high in the southwestern sky after sunset on Feb. 10th. Through binoculars, Uranus and Mars will appear in the same field of view – you may not be able to see Uranus due to the Moon washing it out tho… The Double Cluster and the constellation Cassiopeia appear to the northwest sky early in the morning. NGC 869/884 … Continue reading →

Hunting for Saffordites East of Mt. Graham and the Vatican Telescope. pt. 1

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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Hunting for Saffordites

As a planetary astronomer who has had a long career studying small bodies in the Solar System— from the dwarf planets to asteroids to moons to the rings of Saturn—I have always had an interest in meteorites, rocks from space. I have been fortunate enough to have hunted for meteorites about six times, but unfortunately have never found any. Maybe someday…. However, I have hunted more successfully for other unusual rocks. First, here is a little background. A rock in space that orbits the Sun and is smaller than a planet or dwarf planet is called an asteroid. If it is smaller than about a meter (a little over a yard) in diameter, it is called a meteoroid. If the object looks fuzzy when viewed through a telescope, it is called a comet. Once in a while, one of these runs into the Earth. As it passes through Earth’s atmosphere, the light that we see is called a meteor or, … Continue reading →

In the Meteorite Laboratory: New 3d Printer

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Tucked away in one part of the Vatican Observatory is the meteorite laboratory, where the Vatican meteorite collection of 1200 specimens resides.  The lab specializes in the measurement of physical properties such as density, porosity, magnetic susceptibilty, and heat capacity.  That is where I spend a good deal of my time. In order to do all this research, the lab contains several instruments and miscellaneous apparatus spread across the bench tops.  This include ideal-gas pycnometers, a 3d laser scanner, a liquid nitrogen apparatus for measuring heat capacity, a vacuum chamber, and more. I will probably devote another blog post to describe the research we do with these instruments. Occasionally, the meteorite laboratory acquires a piece of equipment that is a little unusual. One such very recent acquisition is a 3D printer: a Prusa i3 MK3*. For those unfamiliar with the concept of 3D printing, the device extrudes melted plastic through a heated print head, similar to the way a hot-glue … Continue reading →

Vatican Observatory to Host First Ever Workshop on Meteorite Curation

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(Press Release from the Vatican Observatory) The Vatican Observatory will host the first ever workshop on the Curation of Meteorites and Extraterrestrial Samples at its headquarters in the Papal gardens of Castel Gandolfo.  Held from September 10-13, the meeting will bring together an international group of meteorite and extraterrestrial sample curators to exchange ideas, discuss best practices, and to explore ways to better serve the scientific community. Thirty curators and collections managers will be at this meeting, representing 27 scientific institutions from around the world. These include museums, universities, and institutions throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, Russia, Morocco, and Japan.  The curators not only care for meteorite collections, but also specimens gathered from space missions, such as the NASA Apollo moon rocks and the specimens from the Hayabusa mission to the asteroid 25143 Itokawa. “The community of curators has been trying to organize itself for many years,” says Br. Robert Macke, S.J., the curator of the Vatican meteorite collection … Continue reading →