Syrian refugees join meteorite search in eastern Turkey

Syrian refugees join meteorite search in eastern Turkey
MENAFN - The Journal Of Turkish Weekly
November 23, 2015

(MENAFN - The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Syrian refugees in Turkey have been joining the search for meteorite fragments in the eastern province of Bingol.

In Saricicek a village 5 km (3 miles) east of the provincial capital Bingol showers of extra-terrestrial rocks have fallen on their land since early September.

After hearing rumors that researchers and academics were keen to collect the small meteorites villagers have been gathering them day and night since then.

The area still draws hundreds of locals and foreigners after reports that the meteorites whether for research or collectors cost between 20 and 60 per gram.

Around 40 families of Syrians living in Diyarbakir Sanliurfa and Kilis provinces arrived in the area nearly a week ago in hopes of finding meteorites that have fallen from the skies.

Several Syrians most living in makeshift tents entertain the dream of making money from the stones which they described as a "gift from God".


Abbas Mosa Hemo from the Syrian Raqqa province told Anadolu Agency on Sunday that he came with his family to search for the meteorites.

"We have come to seek the stone God has sent as a gift" said Hemo adding they had been able to find two meteorites despite all their efforts.

Another Syrian Shaban Hemo who fled the Syrian city of Aleppo and now lives in a two-room home in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir said he had not found a single meteorite despite a three-day search.

"It is said 'this stone [meteorite] is very precious worth money go and search them'. If I find any I will build a house with that money when we return to Syria" Shaban Hemo said.

Muslum Sefer another refugee from the Syrian town of Kobani that was thescene of fierce clashes between Daesh and Kurdish fighters said he came to Bingol four days ago to find a meteorite.

"I came here with three four friends of mine. One friend and I found one meteorite each; they offered 300 for them but we declined as we learnt that higher prices are offered in Istanbul" Sefer said.

Sefer said he planned to buy a home with the income from the stones they found.

Ali Halil Hemo said his house in Syria had been decimated in clashes and he also wanted to build a new one if he made money with the meteorites.


"We as family came to the village after learning that a precious stone fell in Bingol; it is holy and precious as it came from the sky and everyone is striving to find this stone" Halil Hemo added.

Ozan Unsalan an associate professor at Istanbul University's science faculty has created a website to gather information about the meteorites.

On Nov. 16 he told the shards found around Saricicek were part of 4Vesta one of the largest asteroids in the solar system and were considered precious among the scientific community.

Last week Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek took to Twitter to ask Turkish users whether they thought the meteorites sold in Saricicek were taxable. More than 28000 twitter users replied to the minister's questions. The majority said the income should not be taxed.

By Servet Gunerigok

Source: menafn.com

Turkey says locals will not be taxed for meteorite sales

A resident shows a piece of a meteorite that fell onto the ground in Sarıçiçek village of Bingöl. (Photo: DHA)

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said on Friday that locals from the eastern province of Bingöl will not have to pay a tax on the sales of pieces of a meteorite that fell to the ground near a village there; however, outsiders who come to the area for commercial purposes to pick up and sell the meteorite will be taxed.

Şimşek made the announcement on his Twitter account after holding a poll on the site asking his followers whether they thought the sale of meteorite fragments should be taxed. More than 30,700 people answered Şimşek's question as of Friday afternoon, 72 percent of whom opposed the imposition of a tax.

Debates on whether the sale of the fragments should be taxed or not were fueled by reports that the residents of the village of Sarıçiçek had sold pieces of meteorite for more than TL 1 million in total after a meteor crashed in the area in September.

On Friday, Şimşek wrote, “The sale of meteorite [fragments] by Bingöl locals will not be taxed; however, people who come to the area from other cities for commercial purposes will be subject to the tax.”

The minister said he consulted the Revenues Administration (GİB) of the Ministry of Finance before making his decision.

Şimşek's poll on Twitter drew criticism from Twitter users, some of them saying, “Will you tax the stone sent by God?”

Sarıçiçek, with a population of 3,200, who mostly subsist on farming and sending workers to larger cities for seasonal labor, has seen an influx of wealth after being showered with the valuable stones.




Source: todayszaman.com

The 1,300ft-wide asteroid to hurtle close to Earth on Halloween

TB145, a medium-sized chunk of rock and ice could that cause ‘continental-scale devastation’, will fly by at a distance slightly farther away than the moon




A large asteroid discovered only weeks ago will tear past the Earth on Halloween,Nasa has announced, estimating that it will come closer than any object of its size in the next 20 years.

The asteroid, nicknamed “the Great Pumpkin” and “Spooky” but technically known as TB145, is an estimated 1,300ft (400 meters) wide – 20 times bigger than the meteorite that screamed across the Russian sky and exploded over Chelyabinsk in 2013, shattering windows with shock waves and debris thatinjured more than a thousand people.

The Chelyabinsk object entered the atmosphere at about 12 miles (19km) per second. TB145 will fly past at around 22 miles per second (78,300mph), about 300,000 miles (483,000km) from Earth, slightly farther than the moon.

Scientists at Nasa’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies discovered TB145 on 10 October and announced it to the public this week. The asteroid will make its closest approach on 31 October at about 1.05pm ET (5.05pm GMT). Nasa estimates that no similar object will make a comparable approach until 2027.

TB145 has an unusually oblong orbit, in an area searched less often than the flat-disc plane on which the solar system is arranged. TB145 slices through that plane at a 40-degree angle. Now it’s been spotted, the center’s Paul Chodas said its trajectory was “well understood”.

TB145 last passed by in 1975, when the Earth was at a different place in its orbit around the sun and Nasa’s surveys of the sky were far less comprehensive.

Lance Benner, of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement: “Such a unique orbit, along with its high encounter velocity, raises the question of whether it may be some type of comet.”

Although TB145 will hurtle by “relatively close by celestial standards”, Chodas said in the statement “it is expected to be fairly faint, so night-sky Earth observers would need at least a small telescope to view it”.

Would-be skywatchers can turn to the internet for live telescope views provided by the Virtual Telescope Project.

The asteroid is far too small to exert any kind of gravitational pull on Earth’s plates or tides, Nasa said, with Benner adding that the agency would use radar imaging to examine the object in greater detail. The radar should reveal not only the surface of the object, but also whether it has a companion moon which could in turn provide clues to the object’s mass and density.

Had the asteroid been on a collision course with Earth, three-weeks’ notice “would have been too late to do anything about it”, Chodas told Popular Science.

“An asteroid of this size is really difficult to deflect with only 20 days’ warning,” he said.

Astronomers estimate that they have identified more than 90% of the largest “near-earth objects”, numbering more than 10,000 so far. TB145 ranks among the medium-sized objects, and was discovered by the Pan-STARRS telescope at the University of Hawaii.

A medium-sized chunk of rock and ice like TB145 could cause a catastrophe on Earth – “continental-scale devastation”, in Chodas’ words – if not quite a global disaster on the scale of the six-mile-wide asteroid that is blamed for the death of the dinosaurs. Medium-sized asteroids hit the earth once every 100,000 years, according to Nasa’s estimates.

Close calls are much more common. In January, an asteroid named BL86 slipped by at a similar distance as TB145.

Scientists are developing deflection (and destruction) plans for asteroids should they learn of an impending collision. Knocking the asteroid off course with spacecraft or nuclear weapons is one proposal, as is attempting to destroy the object.

Asteroid defense has several prominent advocates, including Britain’s royal astronomer. In the US, retired astronauts Ed Lu and Rusty Schweickart have created a foundationexpressly to identify threats and plan for them.

For now, Nasa has simply assured the public that the skies are clear of danger, including from TB145.

“There are no known credible impact threats to date,” a statement said. “Only the ongoing and harmless in-fall of meteoroids, tiny asteroids that burn up in the atmosphere.”




Source: theguardian

New director appointed to Vatican Observatory

Pope Francis on Friday named Brother Guy Joseph Consolmagno, SJ as the new director of the Vatican Observatory. Jesuit Br Consolmagno is the current President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, as well as curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Castel Gandolfo, one of the largest in the world.

His research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system.

Br Guy Consolmagno SJ was born in 1952 in Detroit, Michigan. He obtained his Bachelor of Science in 1974 and Master of Science in 1975 in Earth and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his PhD in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona in 1978. From 1978-80 he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the Harvard College Observatory, and from 1980-1983 continued as postdoc and lecturer at MIT.

In 1983 he left MIT to join the US Peace Corps, where he served for two years in Kenya teaching physics and astronomy. Upon his return to the US in 1985 he became an assistant professor of physics at Lafayette College, in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he taught until his entry into the Jesuit order in 1989. He took vows as a Jesuit brother in 1991, and studied philosophy and theology at Loyola University Chicago, and physics at the University of Chicago before his assignment to the Vatican Observatory in 1993.

In spring 2000 he held the MacLean Chair for Visiting Jesuit Scholars at St Joseph's University, Philadelphia, and in 2006-2007 held the Loyola Chair at Fordham University, New York. He has also been a visiting scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center and a visiting professor at Loyola College, Baltimore, and Loyola University, Chicago.

Br. Consolmagno has served on the governing boards of the Meteoritical Society; the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Division III, Planetary Systems Science (secretary, 2000 - present) and Commission 16, Moons and Planets (president, 2003-2006); and the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences (chair, 2006-2007).

He has coauthored five astronomy books: "Turn Left at Orion" (with Dan M. Davis; Cambridge University Press, 1989); "Worlds Apart" (with Martha W. Schaefer; Prentice Hall, 1993); "The Way to the Dwelling of Light" (U of Notre Dame Press, 1998); "Brother Astronomer" (McGraw Hill, 2000); and "God's Mechanics" (Jossey-Bass, 2007). He also edited "The Heavens Proclaim" (Vatican Observatory Publications, 2009).

Br Consolmagno is curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Castel Gandolfo, one of the largest in the world. His research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. In 1996, he spent six weeks collecting meteorites with an NSF-sponsored team on the blue ice of Antarctica, and in 2000 he was honored by the IAU for his contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of asteroid 4597 Consolmagno.










Source: indcatholicnews.com

A Couple Built a Meteorite Museum in the Middle of the ATACAMA Desert

Walk to the edge of town and then keep walking. There you’ll find a humble museum with a lot of heart. (Photos: Jo Piazza)

What’s a guy to do with millions of dollars worth of meteorites stored in a bunker deep below the desert?

Open a meteorite museum of course. And so that is exactly what Rodrigo Martinez after more than thirty years of collecting space junk from the Atacama desert in Northern Chile.

Martinez, a marine biologist by trade, discovered his first meteorite in the nearby Imilac crater in 1983 and he has been hooked on the hunt ever since. The Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, makes meteorite spotting easier than in most locations on the planet, due to both the climate and the fine red-and-brown sand which makes black space rocks particularly easy to see.

As he acquired a collection of meteorites, Martinez became something of an obsessive about the hobby and developed his own laboratory to analyze and classify the rocks as actual meteorites and not just black rocks misplaced in a sea of red.

Many of the meteorites are out in the open for visitors to handle.

Two years ago, Martinez constructed the Museo del Meteorito, a geodesic dome built on family land on the outskirts of downtown San Pedro de Atacama, about a 5-minute walk from the main drag of Caracoles. Signs for the museum are papered all over town and certain street corners are equipped with handmade rustic arrows pointing the visitor away from the adobe buildings and into the desert.

Follow them and you will arrive at the museo.

Martinez built everything himself, from the dome to the intricately detailed exhibits, many of which are more thorough than a meteorite exhibit you might find in a much fancier museum in a much fancier city.

“It was always a dream of mine to have a museum,” Martinez told me. “If we had more money, we would do a much bigger museum.”

It’s true, the museum is modest — really just a single room — but the exhibits are wildly informative and thorough.

Lest you think Martinez is something of a crackpot, let me tell you that there is actually some high-quality science happening here. Martinez promises all his meteorites are certified by NASA, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the French Centre Européen de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Géosciences de l’Environnement.


Today, Martinez claims to have more than $29 million in meteorites ready to be displayed, all of them from this region in Chile. Unlike most museums in the Northern hemisphere, visitors here can touch and handle the rocks.

Some of the larger pieces of rock weigh more than 30 kilograms. Martinez attaches magnets to them to show the composition of the metals.

There are guided tours in both Spanish and English and Martinez is often present to answer questions. He can tell you which rocks came from the mantle of a broken-down planet and which from the crust. He can even tell you about what happened when they hit the Earth, and give you an approximate estimation of when they arrived here.

The Atacama is littered with amateur astronomers ready and willing to show you some spectacular stars, but Martinez wants you to know that what he does is not astronomy.

The meteorites are grouped according to where they have been found and Martinez can decipher whether they came from a single planet.

“It is planetary geology,” he insists with a shy smile.


Intrepid space-junk seekers with some cash to spare can hire Martinez to take them out on a mission. He would be the first to tell you that you could go out into the desert on your own with a magnet and start a hunt for meteorites yourself, but there’s some comfort in bringing an expert along for the ride. The price is steep, just over $700 for one person, but it does include keeping any meteorites you may find. Martinez will cut the rocks with his specialized machinery and begin a preliminary study of its layers.

He tests the rock for nickel and ionizes the cut to look for conclusive evidence that you have discovered a meteorite. Martinez will then send it off to the proper authorities to be authenticated. That is a little harder for an amateur to do with just a map and a magnet.

Martinez and his wife run the museum together.







Source: www.yahoo.com

There’s a Fine Line Between Gift-Shop Rocks and Meteorites

METEORITE HUNTERS SEARCH FOR treasures from space, pushing aside the terrestrial in a quest for the alien.Alexandra Lethbridge sees their work as a metaphor for how people are too often chasing the exotic at the expense of the familiar. “We crave to see and experience things that are strange and different to us, but quite often, we’re overlooking the true nature of the things that surround us,” she says.

The British photographer believes Earth can inspire just as much wonder as anything else in the galaxy. To prove it, she created The Meteorite Hunter. The photo book documents the work of a fictional meteorite prospector and the stunning otherworldly locales her objects come from.Click to Open Overlay GalleryThe .

But here’s the twist. The pictures depict the wonders of earth andspace, but you don’t know what’s what. The rock you’re scrutinizing might be a chunk of NWA Chondrite L5 meteorite discovered in the Sahara or a bit of azurite purchased in a gift shop. Likewise, that spectacular photo of a crater might have been taken by Buzz Aldrin as he walked on the moon, or by an Arizona tourist just feet from his car. Telling the difference between the two can be frustratingly difficult. “The whole project revolves around the uncertainty of the reality of what you’re looking at,” she says.

Lethbridge spent months weaving fact and fiction to create the collection. She purchased a bit of meteorite–or what she was told was a bit of a meteorite—on eBay and humbler rocks like pyrite and labradorite in museum gift shops. She also rummaged through photographic archives at NASA and elsewhere, and combed through antique stores and yard sales for images she could easily manipulate. Some of her images are collages of multiple photos, while others have been augmented with paint to further blur the line between what’s real. “I was trying to create a landscape that was representing something that we haven’t experienced,” she says.

The Meteorite Hunter elicits surprise and awe, leading you to reconsider how you view Earth and see it as a wonderful, amazing place. Lethbridge likens the feeling to the overview effect, the sudden appreciation many astronauts report feeling after seeing our planet from space. “It’s at that moment,” Lethbridge says, “that we break out of our normal perspective and can then experience something extraordinary in the ordinary.”

Source: wired.com

Anthropology professor gives Kansas BC presentation on meteorites

Wichita State University anthropology professor Donald Blakeslee gave a presentation at Boot Hill Museum on Wednesday regarding a pre-history of Kansas.

The presentation focused on how Kansas came about around the 1590s when explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was documented to have arrived.

Then in 1601, Juan de Onate, founder of New Mexico was documented to have found one of the first civilizations already inhabiting Kansas.

"When Onate sent out explorers to document the areas of a found civilization," Blakeslee said. "They had to make maps in order to navigate the locations.

"A man that had been captured by Onate was from the Kansas area at the time who drew the map to allow Onate to reach the location.

"An eyewitness of the account from 1601 shows that a map was drawn after Onate arrived that showed houses among cornfields spread out over a distance, as well as a village and a crossing of a big river into the town.

"That map was later recognized to be the location of what is now Arkansas City."

The other part of Blakeslee’s presentation was how Native Americans used found meteorites to make tools and headdresses.

"Pawnees in 1808 were found to have made materials from meteorites as well as made shrines around them," Blakeslee said. "There is even a rock with carvings depicting falling stars near the location of the palasite meteorite impact site that is now in Greensburg.

"Most of the meteorite shrines across North America seem to sit on top of a hill and show no signs of actual impact at those sites.

"It is therefore perceived that the meteorites were moved to those locations.

"Therefore, the fact that these meteorite tools and shrines were found in the 1600s it can be said that continuous intellectual traditions occurred throughout North American history despite what some historians believe were not the case.

"One historian is even quoted as saying, ‘the only three great civilizations that developed historical continuous intellectual traditions were India, China and Europe.’"





Source: dodgeglobe.com