Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies

Pull out your telescope if you'd like to see the newly discovered asteroid 2014RC this Sunday, September 7th!  The 60-foot-wide (20 metre) Near Earth Asteroid was identified by both the Catalina Sky Survey and Pann-STARRS1 telescopes earlier this week, and will come within 25,000 miles (40,000 km) of our home planet this weekend. Read more…

Dong Ujimqin Qi is a mesosiderite that fell the afternoon of September 7th, 1995, in northeastern China. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 81), the meteorite fell on a cloudless day, and witnesses observed black smoke, as well as “a tremendous sound”. To date, close to 130 kilograms of this stony-iron meteorite have been recovered….

August 22, 2014 Arizona State University’s Center for Meteorite Studies recently received a precious gift. Aside from its price tag, what makes this space rock so special is where it came from: The Moon. The new sample belongs to the rare class of meteorites originating from the Moon called “lunaites.” Of all known distinct meteorites…

The Center for Meteorite Studies and School of Earth & Space Exploration have dedicated a 381g piece of the Seymchan pallasite to the incoming class of 2018!  According to Center Director Meenakshi Wadhwa, “this meteorite was obtained especially for the purpose of dedicating to, and inspiring, the Class of 2018.  We wanted to give them…

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko!  Launched in 2004, Rosetta has spent the last ten years travelling the 405 million kilometres (just over 251 million miles) between Earth and the spacecraft's cometary destination. New photos of the comet, taken by the onboard OSIRIS camera, have already provided detailed images of…