Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Natural meteorite on Mars; man-made meteor on Earth

One less piece of space junk; that tool satchel that famously went off for a short stint in Earth orbit during a previous Shuttle mission to the ISS has descended to Earth and a re-entry demise:

Tool Bag Lost in Space Meets Fiery End

Meanwhile, on Mars, "Block Island" is looking particularly meteoritic:

Rover Spots Possible Meteorite on Mars

Over the weekend, scientists used the rover's alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to get composition measurements and to confirm it was a meteorite.

"It's pretty clear now that it is," [planetary scientist Albert] Yen [of JPL] told SPACE.com.

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