Peter Jenniskens
The meteor astronomer who led the desert search that found the first meteorites from an asteroid tracked in space before impact.
Key facts
- Born
- 1962
- Nationality
- Dutch-born American
- Field
- Meteor astronomer
Peter Jenniskens grew up in the Netherlands and became an expert on meteor showers, flying on aircraft campaigns to observe storms such as the Leonids. He works at the SETI Institute and at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, and has written a major book on meteor showers and their parent comets.
When the small asteroid 2008 TC3 exploded over Sudan in October 2008, Jenniskens saw a unique chance. With the astronomer Muawia Shaddad of the University of Khartoum, he organised a search in December 2008 with around 45 students and staff, walking in long lines across the Nubian Desert. On the second day a student found the first fragment. Over several searches about 600 pieces were recovered, known as Almahata Sitta.
It was the first time scientists could study rocks from an asteroid that had been observed in space before it hit. Its fragments, mostly ureilites mixed with other kinds, revealed that the asteroid had been a jumble of different rocks.
Jenniskens also set up CAMS, a network of video cameras that maps the orbits of meteors to discover new showers, and he has led the recovery of other falls, including the carbon-rich Sutter's Mill meteorite in California in 2012.
On the timeline
- December 2008Almahata Sitta is recovered
- 22 April 2012Sutter's Mill: radar finds a fall
See more
The Almahata Sitta meteoriteThe Sutter's Mill meteorite