2007 Nininger Award Winners announced

The Center for Meteorite Studies is pleased to announce that Mary Sue Bell, a graduate student at the University of Houston and a senior scientist at NASA Johnson Space Center, and Anat Shahar, a graduate student at UCLA are the dual recipients of the 2007 Nininger Meteorite Award!

The Nininger Meteorite Award recognizes outstanding student achievement in the “Science of Meteoritics” as embodied by an original research paper.

Mary Sue's (left) paper, "Experimental shock decomposition of siderite and the origin of magnetite in Martian meteorite ALH 84001", was published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science and investigates impact shock as the source of microscopic magnetite crystals in the Martian meteorite ALH 84001, which were hypothesized by other researchers as biologic in origin.

Anat's (right) paper, "Astrophysics of CAI formation as revealed by silicon isotope LA-MC-ICPMS of an igneous CAI", was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters and describes a novel isotopic analysis technique which constrains the timing and conditions of formation of the earliest formed solids in the Solar System, calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAI).

Mary Sue and Anat's papers were selected from among 14 Nininger Meteorite Award submissions received from students across the country. Each submission was reviewed by a panel of experts from a broad array of fields in meteoritical science.