You may wonder what this is: Well, it's a meteor from Outer Space. Its name is the Allende Meterorite and you can see it and even touch it at the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona.That's my hand in the picture. I have never touched anything so old and I bet you haven't either. How old? It was created before the earth was formed, and parts of it may be older than the Sun! Little round grains on the meteorite are bits of primordial matter that were once molten droplets formed from our solar system's original dust and gas cloud.
It was neat to touch the meteorite. But it was like touching any other rock. So don't drive to Tucson just to touch it.
You can actually purchase Allende fragments relatively cheaply - I bought one for my wife as a gift years and years ago. She didn't much like it at the time so I reluctantly returned it, only for her to get really interested in geology about a year later.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoyed the ASDM - there's a bunch of great things there to see.