There are probably much better places to spend 40 days than searching for meteorites in the frozen, wind blown tundra of Antarctica. But for Research Assistant Professor Barbara Cohen in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
As part of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA, Cohen was one of 10 researchers selected to participate in the latest expedition this winter (summer in Antarctica).
Antarctica is a hot bed of meteorites. More than 25,000 have been collected under the ANSMET program, which began in 1976 when the NSF provided support for a meteorite expedition led by researcher Bill Cassidy. Cohen’s group found more than 1,300 meteorites on their trip.
Once found, the meteorites, which are generally less than one centimeter on a side, are kept frozen and put on a boat to California, then trucked to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston where they are opened up under nitrogen. The meteorites are then unpacked and stored in nitrogen because it displaces water and oxygen in the atmosphere.
The meteorites then go to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. where a team of scientists classify the meteorites and send them back to Johnson Space Center for curation and dissemination to the research community.
Cohen’s research team hopes that among the 1,300 meteorites they found, some might turn out to be lunar or Martian meteorites, although they won’t know the outcome until later this summer.
Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821
Posted by scarr at May 10, 2004 08:56 AM