Out of this world
Teacher to Donate Meteorite to Idaho
By J. Gelband, 5-31-07
 | |
|
Idaho is in the space age, officially. Now we have our own galactic slab.
In honor of “Great Outdoors Month,” Idaho First Lady Lori Otter, Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter’s wife, will accept the donation of a valuable meteorite on behalf of the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation.
The meteorite will land in Idaho’s hands on Friday, June 1 at 9 a.m. at Eagle Island State Park outside of Boise.
Retired West Junior High earth sciences teacher Ron Reil of Boise is donating the meteorite for permanent exhibit at Bruneau Dunes State Park.
If you want to get a whiff of what the cosmos smells like, show up on Friday because it might be the last time the meteorite is out in the open air; upon exhibition it will live inside an environmentally controlled Plexiglas display. Before it moves on to the Steele-Reese Education Center near the observatory at the park, it will be on display at the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation offices in Boise through June.
The meteorite weighs 64 pounds, is composed mostly of iron and comes from one of the most famous meteorite sites in the world – space? No, actually the Campo del Cielo in Argentina.
And this is no ordinary meteorite; officials say this was probably the largest meteor to hit the earth, based on the size and weight of fragments discovered.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Meteorites have been hitting the earth for ten of thousands of years. This is a teaching exibit and do note things fall from the sky every day..media doesn't say that because some are so minute and unimportant..
What did Chicken Little say? The Sky is falling..:)
A little bit of background on the history of meteorites. Colonel Bain is partially correct in the previous comment and the officials claiming this to be the "largest meteor to hit the Earth" don't know what the hell they are talking about.
Meteors have been striking the Earth for over 4 billion years (as opposed to tens of thousands). Indeed the process which led to the formation of our planet (and others in our solar system) involves the accumulation of material due to impacts of kilometer-sized bodies over a period of several hundred million years. This process led to a clearing out of these smaller bodies in the early solar nebula as the new planets grew larger and larger.
We know that about 50,000 years ago, an iron meteor about half the size of a football field and weighing about 300,000 tons struck the Earth in northern Arizona at what is now known as Barringer Meteor Crater.
http://www.barringercrater.com/science/
The meteor that struck in Argentina landed about 4-6 thousand years ago. The initial body may have been comparable in size to the Barringer meteor, but did not excavate as large a crater upon impact.
Based on the reported size of this particular piece of the Campo meteor, it would retail for about $3800 as shown here:
http://www.alaska.net/~meteor/CC.htm
I would like to extend my own personal thank you to Mr. Reil for such a generous donation to our state.
O course without the meteor-nuts..:0)
Thanks for the update and all the details. I also thought the largest meteor claim was pushing it a bit, but it's still pretty cool that we've got a big one here in Idaho.