Howardites
Topic

#Antarctica

The world's richest hunting ground, where ice gathers meteorites and dark stones stand out on blue ice.

Lessons (3)

Courses (3)

  • Collecting, the law and caring for meteoritesMeteorites are both scientific specimens and collectable objects. This final lesson covers ownership, export rules, ethics and how to store
  • Where in the world?Meteorites can land anywhere. But some places are easier to find them in than others. Let's look at a map of the world.
  • Falls and findsSome meteorites are picked up just after people see them land. Most are found years or thousands of years later.

Famous meteorites (2)

  • ALH 84001A potato-sized rock from Mars that sparked a worldwide debate about life beyond Earth.
  • Allan Hills 81005A golf-ball-sized rock found in Antarctica in 1982 – the first meteorite recognised as coming from the Moon.

Meteorite types (13)

  • AngritesThe oldest volcanic rocks known, from a vanished early planetesimal. Named after Angra dos Reis in Brazil, which fell in 1869, angrites are
  • BrachinitesOlivine-rich rocks from an asteroid whose melt drained away. Named after Brachina in South Australia, brachinites are made mostly of iron-ri
  • CH chondrites'High metal' carbonaceous chondrites with tiny chondrules. CH chondrites are rich in iron-nickel metal, about 20% of the rock by vol
  • CO chondritesSmall-chondrule carbonaceous chondrites, close relatives of the CMs. CO chondrites, named after Ornans in France, have very small chondrules
  • CR chondritesMetal-bearing carbonaceous chondrites with some of the most pristine organic matter known.
  • K chondrites (Kakangari grouplet)A tiny grouplet with a mix of features found in no other chondrite group. K chondrites are named after Kakangari in India, which fell in 189
  • LodranitesCoarse-grained leftovers after melt drained away. Named after Lodran in Pakistan, which fell in 1868, lodranites are coarser-grained than ac
  • Lunar basalts and gabbrosDark volcanic rock from the lunar maria, the Moon's great lava plains. Lunar basalts are pieces of the dark lava plains, the maria, that
  • Feldspathic lunar meteoritesPale breccias from the ancient lunar highlands, the most common kind of Moon rock to reach Earth.
  • Mingled lunar brecciasBreccias that mix highland and mare rock, from the borders between the two. Mingled breccias contain both pale highland material and dark ma
  • Martian meteoritesRocks from Mars, recognised by gas from the Martian atmosphere trapped inside them.
  • Planetary achondritesRocks knocked off the Moon and Mars by impacts. A few achondrites come not from asteroids but from much larger worlds.
  • Pyroxene and ungrouped pallasitesPallasites that fit neither main group nor Eagle Station, among them the pyroxene-bearing pair Vermillion and Yamato 8451.

Meteorite minerals (1)

  • WassoniteA titanium sulphide found as tiny grains in an Antarctic enstatite chondrite. Wassonite is titanium sulphide.

Glossary (7)

Questions and answers (15)

Impact events (1)

  • EltaninThe only known impact of a large asteroid into the deep ocean. Most impact craters are found on land, but about 70 per cent of Earth's s

Micrometeorites (5)

People (10)

  • Brian MasonThe Smithsonian curator who classified thousands of Antarctic meteorites and spotted that the first lunar meteorite looked like Apollo highl
  • Edward OlsenThe Field Museum curator who joined William Cassidy on the first American meteorite search in Antarctica in 1976. Edward J.
  • Ian WhillansThe glaciologist who explained how Antarctic ice gathers meteorites, and who co-found the first meteorite recognised from the Moon.
  • John SchuttThe ANSMET mountaineer who, with Ian Whillans, found the first meteorite recognised as coming from the Moon, in January 1982.
  • Keizo YanaiThe Japanese geologist who collected thousands of Antarctic meteorites and helped start the joint search that grew into ANSMET.
  • Ralph HarveyThe geologist who has led ANSMET's Antarctic meteorite searches since the early 1990s. Ralph P.
  • Renji NaruseThe Japanese glaciologist who found the first meteorite on the Yamato ice field in December 1969, opening up Antarctica's meteorite trea
  • Roberta ScoreThe NASA laboratory manager who picked up ALH 84001 on the Antarctic ice in December 1984, the most famous Martian meteorite of all.
  • Ursula MarvinThe Smithsonian geologist who studied Moon rocks and meteorites, searched the Antarctic ice for ANSMET and wrote the history of meteoritics.
  • William CassidyThe geologist who founded ANSMET, the American programme that has brought more than 20,000 meteorites in from the Antarctic ice.

Museums and collections (4)

Meteorite law (1)

  • Meteorite law in AntarcticaUnder the Antarctic Treaty system, meteorites may be collected only for science, by national programmes, and they are not for sale.

Meteorites (the 60 largest of 22,481)