Thursday, March 26, 2009

Space 'Rosetta Stone' Unlike Anything Seen Before

Asteroids - Visions of the Universe, p.34 by Kazuaki Iwasaki

From The Live Science:

Meteorite fragments of the first asteroid ever spotted in space before it slammed into Earth's atmosphere last year were recovered by scientists from the deserts of Sudan.

These precious pieces of space rock, described in a study detailed in the March 26 issue of the journal Nature, could be an important key to classifying meteorites and asteroids and determining exactly how they formed.

The asteroid was detected by the automated Catalina Sky Survey telescope at Mount Lemmon , Ariz., on Oct. 6, 2008. Just 19 hours after it was spotted, it collided with Earth's atmosphere and exploded 23 miles (37 kilometers) above the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan.

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