When I was working at the Natural History Museum, a while ago now it has to be said, one of my jobs involved the study of micrometeorites. These are tiny particles that almost certainly form the largest fraction of extraterrestrial material swept up by Earth each year. Estimates of just how much they represent vary…
So, today is Asteroid Day! Perhaps it’s me, but there is a sort of menacing feeling when you talk to people about asteroids. The pertinent question seems to be: Will they get us the way they got the dinosaurs? You know the sort of thing. And of course it is natural to worry about such…
I have just been reading Katie Joy’s most recent blog from Antarctica. It’s all good news. The search team have now collected this season’s 82nd meteorite specimen. An awesome achievement considering that this is just the second field season for the UK’s Antarctic meteorite initiative. Last season was really just a reconnaissance trip and even…
Let’s face it presolar grains are neat. Tiny particles from stars that lived and died before our Solar System was born. The story of how these mysterious microscopic minerals were first identified, isolated and extracted from meteorites must surely be one of the great scientific detective stories of the late twentieth century. And clearly it…
Meteorites: The Blog from the Final Frontier 