2003 Meteorite News AP-newswire

2003 Meteorite News
AP-newswire

Mars rovers seek to resolve competing clues about planet's past
Author: ANDREW BRIDGES AP Science Writer
Date: December 20, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The prospect of life on Mars has charged the public imagination for more than a century, ever since astronomers first spied what they thought were canals dug to irrigate the planet's ruddy surface.
But after spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes began taking a closer look at the planet, evidence of the canals -- and the Martians who presumably created them -- quickly vanished. Instead, the scrutiny showed Mars to be a dusty, frigid world, shrouded by an atmosphere too thin...
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Researchers find evidence meteorite caused extinction 250 million years ago
Author: PAUL RECER AP Science Writer
Date: November 20, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
A massive asteroid may have collided with the Earth 251 million years ago and killed 90 percent of all life, an extinction even more severe than the meteorite impact that snuffed out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
A new study, based on meteorite fragments found in Antarctica, suggests the Permian-Triassic event, the greatest extinction in the planet's history, may have been triggered by a mountain-sized space rock that smashed into a southern land mass. "It...
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Renovated Hall of Meteorites opening at American Museum of Natural History
Author: DEEPTI HAJELA Associated Press Writer
Date: September 16, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Have you ever wanted to touch a piece of the universe?
Well, you can. The newly renovated Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites is reopening Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History, allowing visitors to again come in contact with objects as old as the sun.
"We display some of the first rocks formed in the solar system," said Denton Ebel, curator of the hall.
The exhibition centers on Ahnighito, a 34-ton fragment of the 4.5 billion-year-old...
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Renovated Hall of Meteorites opening at American Museum of Natural History
Author: DEEPTI HAJELA Associated Press Writer
Date: September 15, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Have you ever wanted to touch a piece of the universe?
Well, you can. The newly renovated Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites is reopening Saturday at the American Museum of Natural History, allowing visitors to again come in contact with objects as old as the sun.
"We display some of the first rocks formed in the solar system," said Denton Ebel, curator of the hall.
The exhibition centers on Ahnighito, a 34-ton fragment of the 4.5 billion-year-old...
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Utah man sentenced to nearly six years for advertising stolen moon rocks Date: August 27, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
A man convicted of trying to sell moon rocks stolen from NASA was sentenced to nearly six years in prison.
Gordon Sean McWhorter, 27, of Salt Lake City, was convicted in June and received a five-year, 10-month sentence Tuesday. He could have been sentenced to 25 years for stealing property of value to the United States and interstate transportation of stolen property. McWhorter, who has maintained his innocence, did not appear for his April trial in Orlando and was arrested three days...
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Russian scientists locate site of meteorite crash
Date: June 20, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Russian scientists say they have found the spot in Siberia where a giant meteorite came crashing to Earth last year.
The researchers from the Kosmopoisk, or Space Search, research group told Rossiya state television Thursday that they believe a burned-out tract of taiga about 700 miles north of the city of Irkutsk is the spot where one or more meteorites fell on Sept. 25. Vadim Chernobrov, Kosmopoisk's coordinator, said the meteorite crash was "comparable to the...
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Researchers say Earth may have formed earlier in history of solar system
Date: June 5, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The Earth became a major planetary body much earlier than previously believed, just 10 million years after the birth of the sun, researchers say.
Experts now believe that the inner solar system planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars -- actually began forming within 10,000 years after the nuclear fires of the sun were ignited about 4.5 billion years ago, says Stein B. Jacobsen, author of an analysis appearing Friday in the journal Science. Early in its life, the sun was surrounded by...
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Man convicted in theft of moon rocks from NASA
Date: June 5, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
A man was convicted Wednesday of attempting to sell a collection of moon rocks and meteorites stolen by three NASA interns last year.
Gordon McWhorter, 27, was convicted in federal court of stealing property of value to the United States and interstate transportation of stolen property. He faces up to 25 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Sentencing is scheduled Aug. 27. His attorney said he plans to appeal.
McWhorter was the only defendant tried for the July 15 thefts from...
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Meteor lights up Midwestern sky, showering homes with rocks
Author: RICK CALLAHAN Associated Press Writer Date: March 28, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The midnight sky flashed an eerie blue early over four Midwestern states as a meteorite exploded in the atmosphere, sending rocks as big as softballs crashing through some houses.
Residents in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin reported seeing the disintegrating meteorite flash across the sky about midnight Thursday. Police were soon deluged with reports of falling rocks striking homes and cars. Chris Zeilenga, 42, of Beecher, Ill., said he and his wife, Pauline, were watching TV war...
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Meteor lights up Midwestern sky, showering homes with rocks
Author: RICK CALLAHAN Associated Press Writer
Date: March 27, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The midnight sky flashed an eerie blue early Thursday over four Midwestern states as a meteorite exploded in the atmosphere, sending rocks as big as softballs crashing through some houses.
Residents in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin reported seeing the disintegrating meteorite flash across the sky about midnight. Police were soon deluged with reports of falling rocks striking homes and cars. Chris Zeilenga, 42, of Beecher, Ill., said he and his wife, Pauline, were watching TV war...
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Odds and Ends
Author: The Associated Press
Date: March 3, 2003 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Farmer Gary Wennihan may have made a meteoric rise to wealth.
Wennihan, 60, was tossing aside rocks in his soybean field to prevent damage to his combine when he picked up a strange-looking rock in the fall of 2000. It turned out to be a rare meteorite scientists say could be worth as much as $1 million.
Ben Rogers, a Northwest Missouri State University student who attends Wennihan's church, offered to take it to his geology professor.
After polishing away...
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Orissa, Kendrapara District, India Meteorite wrecks houses in India 28SEP03

Meteorite wrecks houses in India
BBC NEWS
Sunday, 28 September, 2003, 17:39 GMT 18:39 UK
At least 20 people are reported to have been injured after a meteorite crashed to Earth in eastern India.
Reports say hundreds of people in the state of Orissa panicked when the fireball streamed across the sky.
Burning fragments were said to have fallen over a wide area, destroying several houses.
An official in Orissa said the authorities were assessing the damage and trying to recover what was left of the meteor.
Reports from Kendrapara district in Orissa, where the meteor came to Earth, said windows rattled as it passed overhead.
"It was all there for just a few seconds but it was like daylight everywhere," one resident said.
Rarity
Experts estimate about 100 tons of extraterrestrial dust grains fall to earth each day.
Occasionally, a dark pebble or fist-size object will rain down, with boulder-sized objects or bigger being a historical rarity.
The only recorded fatality from a meteor was an Egyptian dog that had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in 1911.
Seven decades later, scientists recognised the dog had been struck by a meteorite from Mars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3146692.stm