A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater.
Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001) is a fragment of a Martian meteorite that was found in the Allan Hills in Antarctica on December 27, 1984, by a team of American meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. Like other members of the shergottite–nakhlite–chassignite (SNC) group of meteorites, ALH84001 is thought to have originated on Mars. However, it does not fit into any of the previously discovered SNC groups. Its mass upon discovery was 1.93 kilograms (4.3 lb).
Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after Queen Victoria. The rocky promontory of Minna Bluff is often regarded as the southernmost point of Victoria Land, and separates the Scott Coast to the north from the Hillary Coast of the Ross Dependency to the south.
The Transantarctic Mountains comprise a mountain range of uplifted rock in Antarctica which extends, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare in northern Victoria Land to Coats Land. These mountains divide East Antarctica and West Antarctica. They include a number of separately named mountain groups, which are often again subdivided into smaller ranges.
The Taylor Glacier is a glacier in Antarctica about 35 nautical miles long, flowing from the plateau of Victoria Land into the western end of Taylor Valley, north of the Kukri Hills. It flows to the south of the Asgard Range. The middle part of the glacier is bounded on the north by the Inland Forts and on the south by Beacon Valley.
Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as meteorites.
John Schutt is an American mountaineer, geologist, and explorer. He serves as lead field guide for the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program, and as chief field guide and base manager for the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP). He was a member of the HMP's Northwest Passage Drive Expedition. He has summited Denali fifty times.
Antarctica is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km2 (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).
Meteorite hunting is the search for meteorites. A person engaged in the search for meteorites is known as a meteorite hunter. Meteorite hunters may be amateurs who search on the weekends and after work, or professionals who recover meteorites for a living. Both frequently use tools such as metal detectors or magnets to discover the meteorites.
Elephant Moraine is an isolated moraine, 3 nautical miles (6 km) long, located 27 nautical miles (50 km) west of Reckling Peak, to the west of the head of Mawson Glacier in Victoria Land, Antarctica. The moraine, described in some reports as an ice core moraine, is situated along a long, narrow patch of bare ice that extends west from Reckling Peak for 60 nautical miles (110 km). The feature was noted in U.S. satellite imagery of 1973, and in aerial photographs obtained subsequently, by William R. MacDonald of the United States Geological Survey, who originally described it to William A. Cassidy as "a possible nunatak having an outline similar to an elephant." Several United States Antarctic Research Program field parties led by Cassidy collected meteorites at this moraine during the 1979–80 ANSMET season, including the Martian meteorite EETA 79001. The descriptive name was approved by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names in 1989.
The Meteorite Hills are a group of hills, 11 nautical miles long, forming the western portion of the Darwin Mountains in Antarctica. The hills are located between the heads of Darwin Glacier and Hatherton Glacier.
The Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility (LSLF) is a repository and laboratory facility at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, opened in 1979 to house geologic samples returned from the Moon by the Apollo program missions to the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. The facility preserves most of the 382 kilograms (842 lb) of lunar material returned over the course of Apollo program and other extraterrestrial samples, along with associated data records. It also contains laboratories for processing and studying the samples without contamination.
Allan Hills A81005 or ALH A81005 was the first lunar meteorite found on Earth. It was found in 1982 in the Allan Hills at the end of the Transantarctic Mountains, during a meteorite gathering expedition (ANSMET).
William A. Cassidy was an American geologist and professor emeritus of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Cassidy was responsible for recognizing that Antarctica represented the greatest repository of meteorites on earth. Starting in the early 1970s, Cassidy led most major meteorite expeditions to the south polar region, and in 1979, he was awarded the Antarctica Service Medal.
Meenakshi Wadhwa is a planetary scientist and educator who studies the formation and evolution of the Solar System through the analysis of planetary materials including meteorites, Moon rocks and other extraterrestrial samples returned by spacecraft missions. She is director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.
Nancy Chabot is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Catherine Margaret Corrigan, often known as Cari Corrigan, is an American scientist best known as a curator of the meteorite collection at the Smithsonian Institution. She is a scientist in the Department of Mineral Science at the National Museum of Natural History.
Lucy-Ann Adams McFadden is an American astronomer and planetary scientist. An employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, she also founded the Science, Discovery & the Universe Program within the University of Maryland, and the Explore-It-All Science Center, a children's science program.
Allan Hills 77005 is a Martian meteorite that was found in the Allan Hills of Antarctica in 1977 by a Japanese National Institute of Polar Research mission team and ANSMET. Like other members of the group of SNCs, ALH-77005 is thought to be from Mars.
Erika Blumenfeld is an American transdisciplinary artist, writer, and researcher whose practice is driven by the wonder of natural phenomena, humanity’s relationship with the natural world, and the intersections between art, science, nature, and culture. Blumenfeld’s artistic inquiries trace and archive the evidence and stories of connection across the cosmos. Blumenfeld is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Smithsonian Fellow, a Creative Capital Awardee and has exhibited her work widely in museums and galleries nationally and internationally since 1994. Since the early 2000s, Blumenfeld has been an artist-in-residence at laboratories, observatories and in extreme environments, collaborating with scientists and research institutions, such as NASA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the South African National Antarctic Program and the McDonald Observatory. Blumenfeld’s art practice is described as non-traditional and research-based, where the artist has explored many fields and disciplines, including astronomy, geology, planetary science, ecology, environmental conservation, and cultural heritage. Blumenfeld’s research and inquiry have resulted in interdisciplinary artworks in multiple mediums, including interactive 3D computer graphics and 3D modeling, digital media, photography, video art, painting, drawing, sculpture, and writing, which the artist views as the artifacts of her artistic process.
