The Earth is a very beautiful planet. If we hadn’t realised it before, this was made particularly clear in the images taken by Apollo astronauts. A blue and white jewel suspended in the immensity and darkness of space. But that beauty hides a violent past. To form a planet the size of Earth you need…

In a recent post we talked about ordinary chondrites. Why “ordinary”? Well that’s because we have so many of them, nearly 46,000 individuals according to the Meteoritical Bulletin database, or 87% of all officially classified meteorites. No wonder some people think they are a dull. But familiarity can and does breed contempt. They are important samples…

As Space mysteries go things don’t get any bigger than Tunguska! In 1908 something exploded over a remote region of Siberia devastating over 2,000 km2 of forest. Unfortunately, an organised scientific expedition didn’t visit the area until 1927 and were unable to locate any material from the object. We will probably never know for sure…

  While science is fun, most of the time, it does have its routine side. Scientific equipment has to be maintained and repaired, and when it gets too long in the tooth needs to be rebuilt or replaced. So, for the last few months we have been upgrading our laser fluorination line. Our lab specialises…