[meteorite-list] Czechs uncover rare meteorite in Australia

From: Michael Groetz <mpg4444_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 21:02:32 -0400
Message-ID: <ad733150905071802t7559e1d0i3820d28d39807515_at_mail.gmail.com>

http://praguemonitor.com/2009/05/07/czechs-uncover-rare-meteorite-australia


Czechs uncover rare meteorite in Australia

7 May 2009

Prague, May 6 (CTK) - Czech astronomers have counted the trajectory
and the landing of a rare meteorite from the inner Solar System and
found its fragments in southwest Australia, along with their
Australian and British colleagues, Pavel Spurny, from the Academy'
Astronomic Institute, said Wednesday.

The astronomers have called the meteorite Bunbura Roskhole, which
means a black pearl.

The meteorite was detected by a new bolide network in Nullarbor desert
that Spurny and his British and Australian colleagues have installed.

It has been the fifth meteorite with its "genealogy" in the world,
said Spurny, head of the interplanetary mass section.

Three of them were fully mapped by Czech astronomers, who have ranked
among top experts in this field for decades, while the U.S. and
Canadian teams mapped one each.

Czechs have created the European bolide network the most important
part of which is exactly the Czech network of monitoring stations.

The network in Nullarbor desert covers the area of 200,000 square
kilometres, which is 2.5 times larger than the Czech Republic.

Spurny said the Australian bolide collided with the Earth on the
trajectory crossing the inner Solar System.

"For the first time in history astronomers have a solid body with this
trajectory in their hands," Spurny stressed.

They found three small fragments of the meteorite weighing from 150 to
180 grammes, called "achondrites" - stony meteorites from large cosmic
bodies of the Solar System that consist of material similar to
terrestrial basalts and do not contain iron.

Experts succeeded in determining the area of the meteorite landing
very precisely.

The astronomers are now testing the findings. They are convinced that
they will soon identify the matrix body which the bolide comes from,
Spurny said.
Received on Thu 07 May 2009 09:02:32 PM PDT