Accretion Desk

  I’m getting old. There’s no denying it. Not that old, but old enough to know that retirement is not right now but I can see it from here. So when I take a good hard look at my meteorite collection, I consider that downsizing a real possibility. But with that downsizing comes a very real and practical implementation of […]

Every year, I make a few presentations about meteorites and meteorite science to audiences of teachers and students. I’ve done this nationally at science teaching conventions, and locally in small high school classrooms. One thing I really enjoy is the collective gasp when I mention that eating a freshly fallen meteorite is normal, expected even. History is filled with descriptions

Over 20 years ago, hard to believe I know, I posted an article here about the Rose City H5 Impact Melt Breccia. In the time that passed, Rose City turned 100 years old, and that was four years ago! It’s odd to be holding a century old witnessed fall that I acquired for my collection long before I ever considered

At midday on February 20, 1825, the Nanjemoy meteorite fell to earth in the young United States, as of which there were only 24 states united at the time. A number that would remain steady for over a decade more.     Nanjemoy is a H6 chondrite with a total known weight of 7.5kg, and was the fourth meteorite to

Three thousand nine hundred two pounds! That’s the weight of the main mass of Jilin, China, an H5 chondrite that fell on March 8, 1976. And that weight, whether pounds or 1770 kilograms, is the world’s largest individual stone meteorite. Jilin displaced the Norton County, Kansas Aubrite which was the previous record-holding individual stone meteorite at 1070kg. Now I remember

Way back in September of 2024, I penned an article for the Meteorite Times that I titled PreFalls! Meteorites that are meteorites before they are meteorites. The gist of it was that in a few cases, we here on earth were aware that a meteorite fall was going to happen before the space rock even entered our atmosphere. And I

In my previous Accretion Desk article, I highlighted the inexpensive but powerful digital microscopes with built-in display screens. In this installment, let’s look at a few images captured by a digital microscope.     The meteorite showcased here are near microscopic individuals of Chelyabinsk, an LL5 that fell in 2013 in Russia, Castalia, a xenolithic brecciated H5 that fell in

  In the old days, a high quality stereo microscope or dissecting scope was essential to take meteorite appreciation to the next level. Many of us were quick to attempt photography through the eyepiece, and when digital cameras reached sufficient megapixel number, a new photographic power was in the hands of the hobbyist. But today, a new visual superpower is

Back in 2005, in this very publication, I coined the term Find2Fall to describe meteorites whose arrival on earth was not witnessed in the usual way, but it seemed obvious that the meteorite was not completely a find. For instance, there was evidence that the space rock arrived very recently, or there was a documented or historical record containing accounts

Tom Phillips might be best known in the Meteorite-Times universe as OG of the Micro Visions column, and for the cover image of Kevin Kichinka’s book The Art of Collecting Meteorites. Like many of us over the years, we moved from mainstream meteorite activities to a more subdued enjoyment of space rocks especially those meteorites with a unique story to

  One of the benefits of growing old, if there are any, is that sometimes you forget things. Like that you have a large piece of a particular historic French meteorite from 1831 in your collection. And this happened to me recently.     It all started with a for sale notification that popped up in an email. A familiar

  “With the visible stars revolve stones which are invisible, and for that reason nameless. They often fall on the ground and are extinguished, like the stone star that came down on fire at Aegospotami.”     -Diogenes of Apollonia   Back in 1924, July 6th at 1620 local time to be exact, a monomict brecciate diogenite of some 40kg fell

Gao-Guenie is a fall from March 5, 1960 that once was thought to be two separate falls. The first appearance of Gao in the Meteoritical Bulletin was in 1967 while Guenie showed up in 1980. And then Gao-Guenie landed on the scene in the 1999 Meteoritical, formally changing the situation for all previous Gao and Guenie owners. According to the

With AI all the rage these days, and the robot overlords have yet to launch their attack on us humans, I thought I would ask ChatGPT a few basic questions about meteorites to see where we are at. But first, let me share a couple rules I have for engaging AI. My first rule is that I don’t compete with