www.meteoritewatch.com

080612194945-large.jpg

NASA Finds New Type Of Comet Dust Mineral
ScienceDaily (Jun. 17, 2008) — NASA researchers and scientists from the United States, Germany and Japan have found a new mineral in material that likely came from a comet.

The mineral, a manganese silicide named Brownleeite, was discovered within an interplanetary dust particle, or IDP, that appears to have originated from comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup. The comet originally was discovered in 1902 and reappears every 5 years. The team that made the discovery is headed by Keiko Nakamura-Messenger, a space scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"When I saw this mineral for the first time, I immediately knew this was something no one had seen before," said Nakamura-Messenger. "But it took several more months to obtain conclusive data because these mineral grains were only 1/10,000 of an inch in size."

A new method of collecting IDPs was suggested by Scott Messenger, another Johnson space scientist. He predicted comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup was a source of dust grains that could be captured in Earth's stratosphere at a specific time of the year.

"I ran across this article this morning. I do realize that it was written in 2003 but it does make one wonder as to the status of meteorites that come from the North West Africa region. Also, on a personal note, I do own a few unclassified and classified NWA's. Anything that comes from our asteroid belt and our solar system is good enough for me."

Skaal!
Ben de la Vega

NWA's: Second Class Meteorites?
By Norbert Classen, May 2003

On the collector's market, the prices of most Northwest African meteorites are still dropping while witnessed falls and historic specimens are getting more expensive. Are NWA meteorites less valuable, or is it a subliminal form of chauvinism making some people treat them like second class meteorites?

The NWA Dilemma

From SPACE.COM

Study: Life's Raw Material Came from Space
By Clara Moskowitz
Staff Writer
posted: 13 June 2008
03:55 pm ET

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 3:45 p.m. EDT.

We may all be aliens, it seems.

Some of the building blocks of life on Earth came from space, according to a new study of molecules in meteorite fragments.

The study confirmed that some of the raw material for DNA and RNA found in a meteorite did not contaminate the rock after it landed on Earth, but actually originated in space.

The materials in question are the molecules uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the compounds that make up DNA and RNA, and are known as nucleobases.

"We believe early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoritic fragments for use in genetic coding which enabled them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations," said the study's lead author, Zita Martins, a researcher in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London.

Martins and her colleagues detailed their findings in the June 15 issue of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

From UPI.COM

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, June 13 (UPI) -- A massive meteorite weighing a staggering 2,607 pounds has been found near the northern Swedish village of Kitkiojarvi, officials say.

Thomas Osterberg, one of the two people who found it, said it was the biggest meteorite ever found in Sweden, the Swedish news agency TT reported.

He said it was egg-shaped, about one meter high with a diameter of about 70 centimeters at its broadest.

The finders say they hope to sell the whopper to the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

"It must stay in Sweden," Osterberg said.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/06/13/Giant_meteorite_found_in_Sweden/U...

In May 2008 I was walking along the high tide pebble line at our local beach here in Bude, Cornwall, UK and stumbled across an unusual bolder/pebble that is completely out of character to any other stone on the entire beach. It weighs approximately 10 KG and due to being washed around by the sea it has a polished look and feel to it. It appears to have been molton at some stage and there are patches that appear to be iron oxide/corrosion in some of the holes that are on the surface. I am not sure whether it's iron yet as I only have a very weak magnet available here at the moment. But my feeling is that it has some iron content. It feels metalic. There is also a pattern running through it that look like lines/grain and in some of the surface holes you can see a kind of crystaline structure.
My first reaction was that it looked like a meteorite. I am completely new to the subject of meteorites and would really appreciate any feedback that can be passed my way.
Where would I take it to be tested? etc.
I live in Cornwall, England.
Many thanks
Rob

piece2.jpg

I was surfing around the web and found this nice link on how to find a meteorite. WikiHow has a nice short artcle on the basics of meteorite hunting. Read it it's pretty good.

"Know what a meteorite looks like and what are its properties, so that you can easily distinguish one from every other rock. There are 3 major types of meteorites: stony, iron, and stony-irons, but there are usually a few properties that apply to most meteorites, although they might be..." TO READ MORE CLICK THE LINK BELOW

http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Meteorite

'Aliens' Attacking Bosnian Man with Meteorites (SPACE.com) - Five meteorites have fallen on Radivoje Lajic's house in six months. [Yahoo Meteorite News]

Under attack: The owner of a house struck five times by meteorites fears aliens are targeting him

What The???

"Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that all the rocks Radivoje Lajic has handed over were meteorites.

They are now investigating local magnetic fields to try and work out what makes the property so attractive to the heavenly bodies."

Wow!

That's what I said when I saw this meteorite... Look at the size of that there chondrule!

Awesome specimen with huge chondrule poking out of the matrix, it has low iron nickel content and little metallic flakes but whoa that chondrule. If it were poking out much further it would fall out in your hand. But that's not all, the 3rd pic shows a nice big chondrule on the right.

By the way... This one is for sale. Contact me for a price.

Eric

Bonham's is auctioning off the main mass of the Fukang Pallasite, April 30th! That's 925+ pounds of pure pallasite (420,000 grams give or take) being sold for expected to auction for $1M+ at Bonham's in New York later this month.

If this meteorite goes for ONLY $1M the person or company who buys it will have the most precious pallasite meteorite on the planet, and perhaps the most valuable as well. If sliced and sold this piece would generate more than $30 per gram that would bring more than $12M dollars to one lucky owner.

Of course to some this meteorite is priceless, to others it's just another rock. To me, well, let's just say it's a beautiful pallasite and leave it at that. ;)

Read More About The Fukang Pallasite Here On Bonham's site: http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=...

Eric
MW