The Nininger Student Travel Award application deadline is January 19, 2019.
The Nininger Student Travel Award supports travel to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) of up to 4 School of Earth & Space Exploration undergraduate and graduate students to present their latest results.
For details on the award and application process, click here!
The Nininger Meteorite Award application deadline is January 19, 2019.
Applications for the 2018 Nininger Meteorite Award, for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing research in meteoritical sciences, are now being accepted!
The Nininger Meteorite Award recognizes outstanding student achievement in the meteoritical sciences as embodied by an original research paper. Papers must cover original research conducted by the student and must have been written, submitted, or published between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2018. Applicants must be the first, but not sole, author of the paper and must have been studying at an educational institution in the United States at the time the paper was written, submitted, or published.
The Nininger Award recipient receives $1,000 and an engraved plaque commemorating the honor.
For more information, including application form, click here!
The application process for the 2019 Nininger Student Travel Award for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing research in meteoritics and planetary sciences, is now open!
The Nininger Student Travel Award supports travel to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) of up to 4 School of Earth & Space Exploration undergraduate and graduate students to present their latest results.
For details on the award and application process, click here!
Through ASU's Sundial Project, a group of undergraduate students had the opportunity to work with Center Ph.D. Candidate Emilie Dunham and Collection Curator Dr. Laurence Garvie to classify a brand new achondrite meteorite. The students used ASU's electron microprobe to analyze the meteorite's elemental composition, as well as to image the meteorite, and learned how to interpret the results to determine meteorite type. They then presented their results at the Sundial Science Conference, where they were awarded Best Presentation!
A 2015 find from Northwest Africa, the new achondrite has been classified as a lodranite, and is now approved by the Meteoritical Society as Northwest Africa 11970.
Group photo, L to R: Anna Zaniewski (Leader, Sundial mentoring), Emilie Dunham, Tirzah Fougner, Teviyahn Goodwyn, and Elliot Smith. Not shown is Nicholas Delafuente.
Newly classified meteorite, Northwest Africa 11970.
A new paper, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, by Center Assistant Director Dr. Devin Schrader and Center Assistant Research Scientist Dr. Jemma Davidson constrains the background temperature of the protoplanetary disk in the first four million years of the Solar System! Authored with Dr. Steve Desch (ASU) and Dr. Roger Fu (Harvard University), the paper, titled "The background temperature of the protoplanetary disk within the first four million years of the Solar System", also provides a new test parameter for chondrule formation models based on newly determined low-temperature chondrule cooling rates.
Read the paper here – free to download until November 19th!
Chondrules are rounded, silicate-rich particles, and are the namesake of the chondrite meteorites. Chondrites are the most abundant type of stony meteorite, and contain some of the first solids to have formed in the Solar System, including calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions, and chondrules.
The Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University is pleased to announce the application opportunity for the 2019 Nininger Student Travel Award for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing research in meteoritics and planetary sciences.
The Nininger Student Travel Award supports travel to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) of up to 4 School of Earth & Space Exploration undergraduate and graduate students to present their latest results.
For details on the award and application process, click here!
Thursday, October 4th, ASU Now reporter Scott Seckel attended Center Director Meenakshi Wadhwa's New Discoveries Lecture, "Exploring the Solar System through Meteorites".
This week marks a historic anniversary in the Center for Meteorite Studies!
On the evening of Tuesday, October 7th, 1969, Center Founding Director Carleton Moore, Center Curator Chuck Lewis, Center graduate student Bob Kelly, and LECO salesperson Mitch Schwartz crowded into the Center's laboratory to conduct the very first carbon analysis of a lunar sample. Director Moore was extremely relieved when the first sample of lunar regolith began to register a reading – there was carbon in the lunar samples and they were analyzing it!
Center curator Chuck Lewis in the laboratory.
The Center's experience and success in analyzing carbon in meteorites had led to Director Moore's inclusion on the Lunar Sample Preliminary Examination Team (LSPET), the group of scientists assigned to analyze the samples returned by the Apollo astronauts.
While the first samples returned by the Apollo 11 mission were almost entirely analyzed in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now known as Johnson Spaceflight Center), because the ASU Center for Meteorite Studies was the only facility with the analytical machinery in place for proven carbon analyses, Director Moore flew to Houston to pick up the Apollo 11 samples and hand carried them back to ASU for analysis, along with graduate student Everett Gibson.
CMS Director Carleton Moore and graduate student Everett Gibson transporting Apollo lunar samples to ASU. Photo: Jan Young.
Director Moore and his team carried out the carbon analyses for LSPET on the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 samples at ASU, ultimately analyzing over 200 lunar samples.
