1998 Meteorite News AP-newswire

Asians look to sky for spectacular meteor storm
Author: DANIEL L. SMITH Associated Press Writer Date: November 18, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Stargazers across Asia huddled in the pre-dawn chill today, admiring the flares of red and white that streaked through the night sky during the greatest meteor shower in decades.
NASA sent up research planes from this U.S. Air Force base in southern Japan in an attempt to glean hints into the origins of life on Earth and the planet's relationship to the cosmos. From Thailand's highest peak to the neon-drenched streets of Tokyo, people in Asia -- where meteors...
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Scientists and stargazers watch spectacular meteor storm
Author: DANIEL L. SMITH Associated Press Writer Date: November 18, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Meteors streaked through the skies over Asia in blazes of red and white as the biggest meteor storm in decades reached its climax just before dawn Wednesday.
While stargazers gathered across the globe, NASA scientists boarded planes to get above the clouds over Japan to study the spectacle, which began Monday. From the top of the highest mountain in Thailand, to the neon-drenched streets of Tokyo, to the deserts and plains of the United States, people turned their eyes to the skies for...
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APN SUNDAY ILLUSTRATIONS: Subscribers get 1 photo, NY367 of Nov. 17.
Date: November 16, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
At age 95, chemist dazzled by uses of his decades-old discovery
By BEN DOBBIN Associated Press Writer
CORNING, N.Y. (AP) -- When he figured out a way to make exceptionally pure glass, chemist Frank Hyde knew his discovery would have myriad applications.
But who, back in 1934, could have foreseen spaceship windows, precision lenses to build ever-so-tiny computer chips, or the gossamer strands of optical fiber?
"I'm surprised at some of the...
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Scientists launch airborne mission to study Leonid meteor shower
Author: JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA AP Science Writer
Date: November 16, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
From ancient Chinese emperors to crooner Perry Como, stargazers have dreamed of the day they could catch a "falling star."
Physicist Steve Butow isn't just dreaming. He is dispatching a pair of aircraft filled with scientific instruments to examine the Leonid meteor storm as it pelts Earth's atmosphere with fiery debris. The celestial fireworks are expected to peak Tuesday and Wednesday, as Earth passes through the long tail of Comet...
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Mir cosmonauts deploy 'meteorite trap' during spacewalk
Author: VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press Writer
Date: November 11, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Two Russian cosmonauts on the Mir space station deployed a device for studying small meteorite particles and handled more than a dozen other tasks during a six-hour spacewalk that ended early today.
Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev installed the French-made "meteorite trap," which should collect data on a barrage of particles expected to peak around the Mir in mid-November, said Valery Lyndin, spokesman for mission control. The device will stay...
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Mir cosmonauts take spacewalk to install meteor device
Date: November 11, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Two Russian cosmonauts on the Mir space station deployed a device for catching small meteorite particles, during a six-hour spacewalk that ended early Wednesday.
The French-made "meteorite trap" will collect data on a barrage of particles expected to peak around the Mir in mid-November, said Valery Lyndin, spokesman for mission control. The device will stay attached to the Mir until 1999, when it will be taken for analysis back to earth early next year.
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Mir cosmonauts prepare for spacewalk to install meteor device
Date: November 10, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Two Russian cosmonauts on the Mir space station are heading out into space to mount a French-made device for catching and studying small meteorite particles, a news report said today.
Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev were to venture into open space late tonight to install the "meteorite trap," which should collect data on a barrage of particles expected to peak around the Mir in mid-November, the ITAR-Tass news agency said. The device will stay...
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Scientists launch airborne mission to study Leonid meteor shower
Author: JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA AP Science Writer
Date: November 9, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
From ancient Chinese emperors to crooner Perry Como, stargazers have dreamed of the day they could catch a "falling star."
Physicist Steve Butow isn't just dreaming. He is dispatching a pair of aircraft filled with scientific instruments to examine the Leonid meteor storm as it pelts Earth's atmosphere with fiery debris. This close encounter is the chance of his lifetime. The celestial fireworks are expected to peak Tuesday and Wednesday,...
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Mir's crew prepares for micro-meteorite 'rain'
Date: November 3, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The crew of the Mir space station will not face any serious danger when their space outpost enters a cloud of micro-meteorites later this month, space officials said Tuesday.
Just to be safe, however, cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev will board a Soyuz escape capsule permanently attached to the six-module station when the barrage of meteorites peaks in mid-November, said deputy Mission Control chief Viktor Blagov. The "meteorite rain"... Click here for complete article ($1.50)

More evidence found that end of dinosaurs came from the sky
Author: RANDOLPH E. SCHMID Associated Press Writer
Date: October 29, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Scientists have uncovered more evidence that death from the sky ended the reign of the dinosaurs on earth.
According to a report in Friday's edition of the journal Science, a meteorite or comet produced an element, chromium, found in the layer of the Earth's crust that dates to the dinosaurs' end. An impact by an object six to 12 miles in diameter in what is now the Gulf of Mexico has been the leading candidate among theories explaining why the great...
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Oldest extraterrestrial debris offers clues to early conditions on Earth
Author: JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA AP Science Writer
Date: September 10, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
It's old dirt, but it's old dirt that scientists can't get enough of.
Cosmic grit that survived a fiery ride from space 1.4 billion years ago has been discovered in a layer of sandstone in Finland, offering a glimpse of conditions on Earth during the earliest stages of life's formation. The micrometeorites are by far the oldest extraterrestrial debris found on this planet, according to the German and Finnish field team, which published its...
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Oldest extraterrestrial debris offers clues to early conditions on Earth
Author: JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA AP Science Writer
Date: September 9, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Cosmic grit that survived a fiery ride from space 1.4 billion years ago has been discovered in a layer of sandstone in Finland, offering scientists a glimpse at conditions on Earth during the earliest stages of life's formation.
The micrometeorites are by far the oldest extraterrestrial debris found on this planet, according to the German and Finnish field team, which published its discovery in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. The particles are known as...
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Meteorite doesn't contain signs of life, researchers say
Author: KELLY P. KISSEL Associated Press Writer Date: August 14, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Scientists were mistaken when they thought a potato-sized rock found in Antarctica held evidence suggesting life on Mars, according to three papers in a journal about meteors.
"Orson Welles made us want to believe it," said Derek Sears, editor of Meteoritics and Planetary Science at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. But it's unlikely Martians will ever be involved in anything like Welles' "War of the...
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Mars Meteorite doesn't contain signs of life, researchers say
Author: KELLY P. KISSEL Associated Press Writer Date: August 14, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Scientists were mistaken when they thought a rock in Antarctica contained evidence suggesting life on Mars, according to three papers in a journal about meteors.
One article to be published today in Meteoritics and Planetary Science at the University of Arkansas says non-Martian rocks showed the same "evidence" of life. The other articles say temperatures were too high for tiny bacteria to form and leave organic evidence in the nooks and crannies of the 4.5...
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British scientists identify 13th meteorite from Mars
Date: August 10, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
A meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert was positively identified Monday as originating from Mars, British scientists said.
Out of 20,000 found worldwide, the 4.8-pound rock is only the 13th meteorite proven to be from the red planet. Meteorite experts hope this latest discovery, called Lucky 13, will tell scientists more about environmental conditions on Mars and aid in the search for evidence of life on the planet.
"This is another piece in the jigsaw...
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NASA sticks to theory as doubts increase
Author: PAUL RECER AP Science Writer
Date: August 4, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The announcement stunned the world: Scientists had found evidence of life on Mars.
Inside a meteorite from Mars, NASA researchers said, they had discovered the fossilized remains of tiny, bacteria-like animals that may have once thrived on the Red Planet. The idea seized global attention and gave sudden popular legitimacy to the possibility of extraterrestrial life. President Clinton called for a space summit. Famed scientist Carl Sagan called it "a possible turning point in...
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New images show Jupiter moon with crater chain, hints of past ocean
Author: JANE E. ALLEN AP Science Writer
Date: July 16, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The latest photos released Wednesday of Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, suggest an early ocean beneath its surface from which water was shot through volcanoes.
The photos also show a crater chain created when the Jupiter moon was smacked by 13 comet fragments, which may have helped supply the essential ingredients for life. "We don't know and that's why we're out there looking," said James Head, a Brown...
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Jupiter's moon Ganymede has crater chain, hints of past ocean
Author: JANE E. ALLEN AP Science Writer
Date: July 15, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
New images show Jupiter's giant moon Ganymede has geologic hints of an early subsurface ocean and a chain of 13 craters that could have come from a broken-up comet.
But scientists still can't say whether life ever existed there. "We don't know and that's why we're out there looking," said James Head, a Brown University planetary scientist. "You have heat, liquid water, organic material coming...
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'Armageddon' has nothing on Manson's extraterrestrial claim to fame
Author: GREG SMITH Associated Press Writer
Date: July 4, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
As "Armageddon" hits the big screen, it isn't going to make a deep impact among folks here.
After all, they already have their own extraterrestrial claim to fame: a 24-mile wide crater formed some 74 million years ago when a huge meteorite slammed into north-central Iowa and turned the region into a giant killing field. Geologists say it's the second-largest crater in the continental United States and 15th-largest in the world....
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City council sides with boys in meteorite fight
Author: CHRIS NEWTON Associated Press Writer
Date: June 10, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The city council agrees: It's finders, keepers.
Seven boys who laid claim to a meteorite that crashed near where they played basketball won their fight Tuesday, when the Monahans City Council voted unanimously to let them keep the space rock. The mayor and city manager of this West Texas city had said the rock landed on city property on March 22 and thus belonged to them.
But council members said before their 4-0 vote that it would be heartless not to recognize the...
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Boy finds meteorite, but city officials say 'finders keepers' doesn't apply
Author: CHRIS NEWTON Associated Press Writer
Date: June 9, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Eleven-year-old Alvaro Lyles says a meteorite that landed in his front yard belongs to him and his family under one of the oldest rules in the book: "finders, keepers."
But city officials are holding on to the soccer ball-sized rock, saying it actually landed on government property. The city council is scheduled to take up the ownership issue at a meeting tonight. Alvaro's father has threatened to sue the city if the meteorite isn't...
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Scientists raise new questions about life in Mars rock
Author: PAUL RECER AP Science Writer
Date: June 4, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
A chemical study casts fresh doubt on claims by NASA scientists that a rock from Mars contains evidence of life.
A California research team says a mineral structure inside the meteorite were made by nonbiologic processes, and not by ancient bacteria as proposed by some researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A space agency scientist says the research is flawed and does not prove that microbes never lived inside the rock known as Allen Hills 84001.
The...
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Odds and Ends
Author: The Associated Press Date: May 28, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
"Armageddon" came and went in less than five days. The banner, that is.
Traffic became nightmarish after a 10-story banner for the upcoming film was unveiled in sight of one of the busiest highway interchanges in California. The eye-catching ad, posted on a 15-story building, shows a flaming meteorite flying through the side of a glass office building.
The sign came down Wednesday because no one bothered to get a permit to put it up.
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More fireballs seen in the West; scientists differ on meaning
Author: MARTHA BELLISLE Associated Press Writer
Date: February 12, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The phone lines to Denver's Museum of Natural History have been buzzing since a fireball streaked across the Colorado sky last month.
That flash of light, caught on a homeowner's security camera, was not an isolated incident; it was followed by at least four more fireball sightings, said Jack Murphy of the museum's geology department. He hopes to find pieces of the celestial objects for the museum's collection. As new reports of sightings...
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Cosmonauts pitch Space Pens, Russian spacesuits in American TV debut
Author: CHRIS OLERT Associated Press Writer
Date: February 7, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The pen was mightier than the word when late-night television crossed the final shopping frontier early Saturday.
Two Russian cosmonauts aboard the Mir space station, appearing live on the QVC shopping channel, set out to hawk the American-made $32.75 Fisher Space Pen, used on NASA space flights since 1967 because it can write in the absence of gravity. As they orbited 200 miles above the Earth, a technical problem kept Commander Anatoly Solovyov and flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov...
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Shopping heaven -- cosmonauts to hawk Mars rocks, spacesuits on QVC
Author: RICHARD PYLE Associated Press Writer
Date: February 6, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Just when you thought late-night television couldn't get any weirder, Russian cosmonauts are taking over QVC.
Two cosmonauts will appear on the cable shopping channel live via satellite from the orbiting Mir station Saturday as ex-flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin offers comments from the stage of a New York comedy club. No joke -- the Russians are hawking spacesuits, meteorites and Mars rocks.
Just what they get out of the deal isn't clear. But QVC says...
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In TV shopping orbit: Russian space suits and Mars rocks
Author: RICHARD PYLE Associated Press Writer Date: February 5, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
The glitzy universe of late-night, cable-TV shopping is expanding to include outer space, joining forces with Russia's beleaguered space program to hawk Mars rocks, meteorites and genuine cosmonaut space suits.
QVC, the channel that sold Muhammad Ali's Michigan farm and nearly clinched a deal for the Brooklyn Bridge, has enlisted the help of real cosmonauts from the Mir space station on a program early Saturday. Two cosmonauts will appear live by satellite from...
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Studies say life traces in Mars rock probably came from Earth; NASA scientists disagree
Author: PAUL RECER AP Science Writer
Date: January 16, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
NASA scientists who say they found evidence of Martian microbes in a rock that came from Mars are not impressed with two studies that say the rock actually contains organic contaminants from Earth.
In reports published today in the journal Science, researchers at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography conclude that amino acids and carbon found in the Mars rock got there after it landed on Earth and lay on Antarctic ice for thousands of years. The...
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Studies: Life traces in Mars rock probably came from Earth
Author: PAUL RECER AP Science Writer
Date: January 15, 1998 Publication: Associated Press Archive
Organic chemicals found in a Martian rock may be contamination from Earth and not evidence of life on the Red Planet, new studies suggest. But NASA scientists say the reports "don't shake our belief one bit."
Laboratory studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography conclude that amino acids and carbon found in a rock from Mars probably got there after the rock landed on Earth and lay on Antarctic ice for...
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