Sara Russell | |
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 Russell speaks on The Moon Landings & Cosmic Mineralogy in 2012 | |
| Born | 1966 (age 56–57) |
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Sara Samantha Russell (born 1966) is a professor of planetary sciences and leader of the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum, London. She is a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society and of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Russell was captivated by the Moon landing as a child. [1] [2] She studied at the University of Cambridge, where she was introduced to microanalysis by Jim Long. [3] She had started studying natural sciences, but heard that geologists host the best parties, so switched courses. [3] She was inspired to complete a PhD degree in geology after attending a lecture by Colin Pillinger, and moved to the Open University. [3] [4] She won the Royal Astronomical Society Keith Runcorn Prize for the best British doctoral thesis in geophysics in 1993.
Russell completed postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology and Smithsonian Institution. [5] [6] [7] She joined the Natural History Museum in 1998, where she studied protostars and planets. [8] In 2000 she edited the collection Protostars and Planets IV. [9] Russell is leader of the micrometeorite and meteorite collection at the Natural History Museum, London. [10] She has been on three expeditions to Antarctica searching for meteorites. [1] [11] She has been awarded the Antarctica Service Medal. [12] She was awarded a Leverhulme Trust grant in 2005. [13] In 2006 she studied the meteorites in the early solar system and the protoplanetary disc. [14]
On behalf of the Natural History Museum, Russell was part of the team which arranged the acquisition of the Ivuna meteorite in 2008. [15] [16] In 2009 she published the book Meteorite with Caroline Smith and Gretchen Benedix. [17] She won the Geological Society of London Bigsby Medal in 2010. [18] [19] In 2011 Russell took part in an exhibition at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. [20] She is a science team member of OSIRIS-REx. [11] She was the initial point of contact in the process by which the Tissint meteorite came to be acquired by the Natural History Museum in 2012. [21] In 2014 she studied Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo Astronauts, finding that the lunar crust did not form from a common source. [22] [23]
Russell has studied the origin of water in the inner Solar System with Monica Grady. [24] She published Chondrules in 2018, a book which considers the silicate grains that form in the protoplanetary disk. [25] The eponymous asteroid 5497 Sararussell was named after her. Russell is an advocate for diversity in science. [26]
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.
In meteoritics, a meteorite classification system attempts to group similar meteorites and allows scientists to communicate with a standardized terminology when discussing them. Meteorites are classified according to a variety of characteristics, especially mineralogical, petrological, chemical, and isotopic properties.
The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System. It suggests the Solar System is formed from gas and dust orbiting the Sun which clumped up together to form the planets. The theory was developed by Immanuel Kant and published in his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) and then modified in 1796 by Pierre Laplace. Originally applied to the Solar System, the process of planetary system formation is now thought to be at work throughout the universe. The widely accepted modern variant of the nebular theory is the solar nebular disk model (SNDM) or solar nebular model. It offered explanations for a variety of properties of the Solar System, including the nearly circular and coplanar orbits of the planets, and their motion in the same direction as the Sun's rotation. Some elements of the original nebular theory are echoed in modern theories of planetary formation, but most elements have been superseded.
A chondrule is a round grain found in a chondrite. Chondrules form as molten or partially molten droplets in space before being accreted to their parent asteroids. Because chondrites represent one of the oldest solid materials within the Solar System and are believed to be the building blocks of the planetary system, it follows that an understanding of the formation of chondrules is important to understand the initial development of the planetary system.
A calcium–aluminium-rich inclusion or Ca–Al-rich inclusion (CAI) is a submillimeter- to centimeter-sized light-colored calcium- and aluminium-rich inclusion found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. The four CAIs that have been dated using the Pb-Pb chronometer yield a weighted mean age of 4567.30 ± 0.16 Myr. As CAIs are the oldest dated solids, this age is commonly used to define the age of the Solar System.
A chondrite is a stony (non-metallic) meteorite that has not been modified, by either melting or differentiation of the parent body. They are formed when various types of dust and small grains in the early Solar System accreted to form primitive asteroids. Some such bodies that are captured in the planet's gravity well become the most common type of meteorite by arriving on a trajectory toward the planet's surface. Estimates for their contribution to the total meteorite population vary between 85.7% and 86.2%.
A micrometeorite is a micrometeoroid that has survived entry through the Earth's atmosphere. Usually found on Earth's surface, micrometeorites differ from meteorites in that they are smaller in size, more abundant, and different in composition. The IAU officially defines meteorites as 30 micrometers to 1 meter; micrometeorites are the small end of the range (~submillimeter). They are a subset of cosmic dust, which also includes the smaller interplanetary dust particles (IDPs).
In astrophysics, accretion is the accumulation of particles into a massive object by gravitationally attracting more matter, typically gaseous matter, in an accretion disk. Most astronomical objects, such as galaxies, stars, and planets, are formed by accretion processes.
George Wetherill was a physicist and geologist and the Director Emeritus of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC, USA.
In astronomy or planetary science, the frost line, also known as the snow line or ice line, is the particular distance in the solar nebula from the central protostar where it is cold enough for volatile compounds such as water, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide to condense into solid ice grains.
Lead–lead dating is a method for dating geological samples, normally based on 'whole-rock' samples of material such as granite. For most dating requirements it has been superseded by uranium–lead dating, but in certain specialized situations it is more important than U–Pb dating.
Extraterrestrial material refers to natural objects now on Earth that originated in outer space. Such materials include cosmic dust and meteorites, as well as samples brought to Earth by sample return missions from the Moon, asteroids and comets, as well as solar wind particles.
Park Forest is an L5 chondrite meteorite that fell on 26 March 2003 in Illinois, United States.
Winonaites are a group of primitive achondrite meteorites. Like all primitive achondrites, winonaites share similarities with chondrites and achondrites. They show signs of metamorphism, partial melting, brecciation and relic chondrules. Their chemical and mineralogical composition lies between H and E chondrites.
This is a glossary of terms used in meteoritics, the science of meteorites.
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. She is also a research associate at Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
The Desert Fireball Network (DFN) is a network of cameras in Australia. It is designed to track meteoroids entering the atmosphere, and aid in recovering meteorites. It currently operates 50 autonomous cameras, spread across Western and South Australia, including Nullarbor plain, WA wheatbelt, and South Australian desert, covering an area of 2.5 million km2. The locations of the stations were chosen to facilitate meteorite searching. Starting in 2018, cameras deployed across the world began the first global fireball observatory in association with partner research teams.
Caroline Smith is the Head of Earth Sciences Collections and Principal Curator of Meteorites at the Natural History Museum in London, UK. She specializes in geochemistry, meteorites, microscopy, mineralogy, and public outreach.
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.
CM chondrites are a group of chondritic meteorites which resemble their type specimen, the Mighei meteorite. The CM is the most commonly recovered group of the 'carbonaceous chondrite' class of meteorites, though all are rarer in collections than ordinary chondrites.
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