
Seasons Greetings2013 Season's Greetings from the Center for Meteorite Studies About 300 years ago, a 3,500 tonne iron meteorite slammed into the desert of Saudi Arabia, instantly melting the sand and forming craters up to 100 m in diameter. The craters are surrounded by impact glass, such as the one pictured, which… |
Unique Meteor Shower Gets Underway!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… |
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… |