Mi(ni)Geo

This handout photo provided by Darryl Pitt of the Macovich Collection shows an external view of a Martian meteorite recovered in December 2011 near Foumzgit, Morocco following a meteorite shower believed to have occurred in July 2011. Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars _ meteorite chunks that fell from the red planet over Morocco last summer. Meteorites from Mars are more than 1 million times rarer than gold. And this is only the fifth time experts have chemically confirmed fresh Martian rocks fell to Earth. The last time was in 1962. Scientists believe this meteorite fell last July because there were sightings of it. Credit: Darryl Pitt, Macovich Collection (vía The Associated Press)

(Source: classyassholes)

New Impact Cluster (by Lunar and Planetary Institute)

In August 2010, the Context camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter discovered a patch of dark spots in an image in western Amazonia Planitia that were not present in a Mars Odyssey THEMIS image of the same area in April 2008. HiRISE was called in to have a closer look to confirm the discovery. This image reveals at least four distinct craters, each surrounded by a rayed ejecta zone where excavated material has been emplaced and/or the bright surface dust cover blown away. Due to the heat and pressure of entering Mars’ atmosphere, a single impactor (e.g., a small asteroid or comet) may burst into many individual pieces, likely causing the multiple-impact pattern we see here.

The Willamette Meteorite, featured above, is one of the treasures of the American Museum of Natural History’s permanent collection. Visitors are able to see and touch this 15.5 ton (14.1 metric ton) remnant of the ancient cosmos — the largest meteorite ever found in the U.S. It’s thought to be the iron-nickel core of a planet or moon that was shattered in a stellar collision more than a billion years ago. It crashed into the Earth thousands of years ago, traveling at more than 40,000 mph (64,374 km/h). The Museum purchased the Willamette Meteorite in 1906 and since then it’s been on almost continuous display and viewed by millions of visitors from around the world. Credit: American Museum of Natural History / D. Finnin. (via EPOD)

Music from Space (by subarcticmike)

Gibeon meteorite made into a guitar pick. Acid-etched Widmanstatten pattern is unique to iron-nickel meteorites. This ‘space cowboy’ strummer was acquired from ‘Placer Gold Design’.