Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies

Rancho Gomelia is an iron (IIIAB) meteorite found near Durango, Mexico, in 1975.  Two pieces, weighing a total of 15.65 kilograms, were recovered. This specimen of Rancho Gomelia measures approximately 8" in length, and displays an excellent Widmanstatten pattern (named for Count Alois von Beckh Widmanstatten, director of the Austrian Imperial Porcelain Works, in 1808),…

In becoming a partner in the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope, scientists from ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration will be using it to explore the beginning of the universe.  Arizona State University has joined with 14 other institutions in Australia, India, New Zealand, and the United States in a radio telescope project that…

Scientists have argued for half a century about the existence of a form of diamond called lonsdaleite, which is associated with impacts by meteorites and asteroids. A group of scientists based mostly at Arizona State University now show that what has been called lonsdaleite is in fact a structurally disordered form of ordinary diamond. The…

Rocks from Space: Tales of Life and Death in the Solar System The 2014 Eugene Shoemaker Memorial Lecture will be presented by Center for Meteorite Studies Director Meenakshi Wadhwa, Thursday, November 20th. Details and reservations are available here!

A team of 14 scientists led by David Williams of Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration has completed the first global geologic and tectonic map of the asteroid Vesta. The work reveals that Vesta's history has been dominated by impacts from large meteorites. The mapping was carried out using images from NASA's…