[meteorite-list] Meteorite On Mars....Congrats NASA

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Jan 19 20:33:06 2005
Message-ID: <BAY4-F120C66139AB42B94DD77B1B3810_at_phx.gbl>

Hello List,

I would like to publicly congratulate NASA on the finding of the iron
meteorite. I didn't want to say anything, before NASA did....that they had
analyzed the rock....although I must admit I didn't read all the e-mails on
the subject.

The following is from an e-mail I got from a NASA scientist that is pretty
well known in the meteorite scientific field. Such that he likely would
prefer me not to post his name so I will not. (Notice that none of these
people post to the list.)

"Isn't it neat that the MER Opportunity rover found an iron meteorite on
Mars. One of the MER team members with the Mossbauer spectrometer instrument
works in our research group. He showed me the data and the nickel-iron is a
dead ringer for kamacite and they even know the nickel
concentration fairly accurately. Actually this is the second meteorite found
on the mission. The first one was the rock that had identical chemical
composition to EETA79001."

The Rovers have now operated more then 4 times longer then the original
project. My hat is off to the many people, in NASA, and the European space
community that worked on the Rover project....or I guess I should say
projects.

I am writing a letter of support to my congressmen and hope that the next
time around, NASA does not get a short stick.

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
www.meteoritearticles.com
Received on Wed 19 Jan 2005 08:32:13 PM PST