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Event #1: Meteorite Exhibit



Me with Old Woman Iron Meteorite 
Me with Camp Wood Iron Meteorite 

I went to the meteorite exhibit in the Geology building and was pleasantly surprised! It definitely was not anything astonishing, but there was a bounty of objects and rare items that were on display in the small room!  The first selfie I took was in front of the Old Woman Iron Meteorite (second largest meteorite from the USA). Crazy to think that its 177.4 lbs because it doesn't look it! and even crazier than the meteor was much heavier when found! The second photo is in front of the Gibeon and Camp Wood Iron Meteorite. Something interesting about the Gibeon meteor group IVA is that it also includes diamond structures. The Camp Wood Iron came from a planetesimal which is a minute planet a body that could or did come together with many others under gravitation to form a planet. One major realization after visiting the exhibit was that meteorites are asteroid fragments when previously I thought they were two separate things. I learned there are 
Martian Basalt 
primitive chondritic meteorites (like a human infant or adolescent). They are the most common form of meteorites with compositions similar to the sun! Tektite meteorites have soil-like sediment characteristics found primarily in North China. The ones on display pretty much look like dog poop you'd find in the grass at a park. They get their shape from spinning while in flight in the atmosphere so it's pretty cool even if they resemble feces. However, there are prettier ones like the larger/layered tektites. The prettiest one I saw was the oriented stony meteorite and the coolest was the Martian Basalt.
The big question I have is how to people identify these as meteorites rather than just regular rocks? Comparing a smooth pebble on the beach to the martian basalt any standard person would not know which one came from Earth so does this mean they are hundreds, thousands of meteorites yet to be discovered scattered throughout our Earth?
Overall, the exhibit was well put together and had some interesting stuff to look at. The descriptions were not very intriguing so I was a bit underwhelmed in that department. I would have hoped for more descriptive language versus giving us the velocity in which the meteor hit the Earth. 
oriented stony meteorite

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