Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies

Wishing you All the best in 2015! from the Center for Meteorite Studies Northwest Africa 7611 is a lunar meteorite found near the Moroccan/Algerian border in May of 2012.  The total known weight of the original specimen was 916 grams, and this 311-gram piece, donated to the Center by collector Jay Piatek, is the largest…

Experiments with the high pressure wind tunnel at Arizona State University’s Planetary Aeolian Laboratory provide key data for understanding dunes on Saturn’s moon Titan. Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is one of the few solar system bodies — and the only planetary moon — known to have fields of wind-blown dunes on its surface. (The others…

A recent article published in Science features the Martian meteorite NWA 7034 (aka Black Beauty), and details its discovery and distribution among collections. This meteorite is a polymict breccia containing a diverse assemblage of igneous and “sedimentary” materials. It was most likely produced by impact, but also involved volcanic and low-temperature alteration processes. The bulk…

This video was made from CT scans of a slice (45 mm x 55 mm x 4 mm) of the NWA 7034 (AKA “Black Beauty”) Martian meteorite from the ASU Center for Meteorite Studies collection. This meteorite is a polymict breccia containing a diverse assemblage of igneous and “sedimentary” materials. It was most likely produced…

While researchers have long known that our planet’s most abundant solid phase is magnesium iron silicate (Mg,Fe)SiO3, since this material occurs deep below Earth’s surface, in the lower mantle, it has remained officially nameless until now (in order to receive a formal, recognized name, a mineral sample must be available for characterization).  In a new…