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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).
A lunar meteorite is a meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon. A meteorite hitting the Moon is normally classified as a transient lunar phenomenon.
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.
Devon Island is an island in Canada and the largest uninhabited island in the world. It is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of the largest members of the Arctic Archipelago, the second-largest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada's sixth-largest island, and the 27th-largest island in the world. It has an area of 55,247 km2 (21,331 sq mi). The bedrock is Precambrian gneiss and Paleozoic siltstones and shales. The highest point is the Devon Ice Cap at 1,920 m (6,300 ft) which is part of the Arctic Cordillera. Devon Island contains several small mountain ranges, such as the Treuter Mountains, Haddington Range and the Cunningham Mountains. The notable similarity of its surface to that of Mars has attracted interest from scientists.
Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ, is an American research astronomer, physicist, religious brother, director of the Vatican Observatory, and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
ANSMET is a program funded by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation that looks for meteorites in the Transantarctic Mountains. This geographical area serves as a collection point for meteorites that have originally fallen on the extensive high-altitude ice fields throughout Antarctica. Such meteorites are quickly covered by subsequent snowfall and begin a centuries-long journey traveling "downhill" across the Antarctic continent while embedded in a vast sheet of flowing ice. Portions of such flowing ice can be halted by natural barriers such as the Transantarctic Mountains. Subsequent wind erosion of the motionless ice brings trapped meteorites back to the surface once more where they may be collected. This process concentrates meteorites in a few specific areas to much higher concentrations than they are normally found everywhere else. The contrast of the dark meteorites against the white snow, and lack of terrestrial rocks on the ice, makes such meteorites relatively easy to find. However, the vast majority of such ice-embedded meteorites eventually slide undiscovered into the ocean.
The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) is the first of two simulated Mars habitats located on Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada, which is owned and operated by the Mars Society. The station is a member of the European Union-INTERACT circumarctic network of currently 89 terrestrial field bases located in northern Europe, Russia, US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Scotland as well as stations in northern alpine areas.
Pascal Lee is co-founder and chairman of the Mars Institute, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, and the Principal Investigator of the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He holds an ME in geology and geophysics from the University of Paris, and a PhD in astronomy and space sciences from Cornell University.
The Haughton–Mars Project (HMP) is an international interdisciplinary field research project being carried out near the Haughton impact crater on Canada's northern Devon Island. Human-centered computing (HCC) studies are aimed at determining how human explorers might live and work on other planetary objects, in particular on Mars. Conducted jointly by SETI and the Mars Institute, the project's goal is to utilize the Mars-like features of Devon Island and the impact crater to develop and test new technologies and field operating procedures, and to study the human dynamics which result from extended contact in close quarters. This knowledge will be used in planning missions by both humans and robots to other terrestrial bodies.
The Mars Institute is an international non-governmental organization created with the goals of advancing the scientific study and exploration of Mars, conducting peer-reviewed research, and educating the public about Mars exploration. It was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in both United States and Canada in 2002.
The Allan Hills are a group of hills at the end of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in Oates Land and Victoria Land regions of Antarctica.
Serena Maria Auñón-Chancellor is an American physician, engineer, and NASA astronaut. She visited the ISS as a flight engineer for Expedition 56/57 on the International Space Station.
Richard Brice Hoover is a physicist who has authored 33 volumes and 250 papers on astrobiology, extremophiles, diatoms, solar physics, X-ray/EUV optics and meteorites. He holds 11 U.S. patents and was 1992 NASA Inventor of the Year. He was employed at the United States' NASA Marshall Space Flight Center from 1966 to 2012, where he worked on astrophysics and astrobiology. He established the Astrobiology Group there in 1997 and until his retirement in late 2011 he headed their astrobiology research. He conducted research on microbial extremophiles in the Antarctic, microfossils, and chemical biomarkers in precambrian rocks and in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Hoover has published claims to have discovered fossilized microorganisms in a collection of select meteorites on multiple occasions.
Human analog missions are activities undertaken on Earth in various environments to simulate aspects of human missions to other worlds, including the Moon, asteroids, and Mars. These remote field tests are performed in locations that are identified based on their physical similarities to the extreme space environments of a target mission. Such activities are undertaken to test hardware and operational concepts in relevant environments.
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).
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.
The Northwest Passage Drive Expedition (NWPDX) (2009–2011) was a multi-stage vehicular expedition from the North American mainland to Devon Island in the high Arctic, by way of the Northwest Passage. The expedition was led by planetary scientist Pascal Lee. Although the expedition was primarily logistical and was not intended to be a high fidelity simulation of a crewed pressurized rover traverse on the Moon or Mars, it was the first long-distance road trip dedicated to planetary exploration studies and provided important lessons for planning future long-range vehicular traverses off Earth. The expedition was also the first crossing of the Northwest Passage in a road vehicle. The first stage of the expedition, NWPDX-2009, established a record for the longest distance driven continuously on sea-ice in a road vehicle: 496 km (308 mi).
Jani Radebaugh is an American planetary scientist and professor of geology at Brigham Young University who specializes in field studies of planets. Radebaugh's research focuses on Saturn's moon Titan, Jupiter's moon Io, the Earth's Moon, Mars and Pluto. Radebaugh is a Science Team member of the Dragonfly mission to Titan, the IVO Io mission proposal, and the Mars Median project. She was an Associate Team Member of the Cassini-Huygens RADAR instrument from 2008 to 2017, and was a graduate student scientist for Io for the Galileo mission. She does science outreach through her work as an expert contributor to the Science/Discovery program How the Universe Works and other television and radio programs. In December 2012, Radebaugh and her colleagues on the Cassini mission announced the discovery of Vid Flumina, a liquid methane river on Saturn's moon Titan over 320 km (200 mi) long and resembling the Nile river.
References
- ↑ "MetSoc - Latest News: Next Council 2005-6". Archived from the original on 2007-06-17. Retrieved 2007-06-20. (Retrieved June 2007)
- ↑ http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=61190 (Retrieved June 2007)
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