11 Dec 2013 Residents of Tucson, AZ were startled by a sonic boom Tuesday evening! The event was captured on video, and coincided with the beginning of this year's Geminid meteor shower. Unlike most other meteor showers, the Geminid meteor shower is unique in that the particles that create the telltale streaks across the sky during […]
Category: News
Newly Observed Main Belt Comet Has 6 Tails!
A new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal provides details on a unique asteroid with multiple comet-like tails! While comets originate in the Kuiper Belt or Oort cloud, however, this object orbits at the inner edge of the asteroid belt. This extraordinary space object, dubbed P/2013 P5, was observed using the Hubble Space Telescope and […]
New Details of Chelyabinsk Meteorite Released!
Three studies in the journals Science and Nature have revealed new information on the Chelyabinsk meteorite, including its potential origin, and details of the meteorite’s spectacular entry into Earth’s atmosphere! New information on Chelyabinsk: – A comprehensive study of the impact, including characterization of the meteorite and shockwave has been compiled by an international group […]
Huge piece of Chelyabinsk meteorite pulled from lake!
The largest piece, to date, of the Chelyabinsk meteorite has just been recovered from a lake in central Russia, where it landed in February of this year. Divers carefully raised the 5-foot-long stone from a depth of just over 42 feet of water. Attempts to accurately weigh the meteorite were thwarted when the scale broke […]
Solar wind and Moon rocks – articles by CMS Director featured in Astronomy magazine!
The October 2013 volume of Astronomy Magazine includes an article written by CMS Director Meenakshi Wadhwa! The article, "Order from Chaos: Genesis samples the solar wind" details the ongoing analysis of solar wind samples captured and returned to Earth by NASA's Genesis mission. You can read more about Genesis here, and learn about analysis of […]
