Friday, April 20, 2007

When the rocks come from the outer space, we call them meteorites, they arose so much interest in our minds. Asteroids can tell us about the earliest history, the dawn of the solar system. These rocks are part of the story about how the solar system was forming and evolving. So, instead of using the biggest and most magnifying telescopes, researchers use the most powerful microscopes in order to learn how things were formed. In 1944, as a part of Institute of Meteoritics, there was founded the UNM's Meteorite Museum and Collection. Nowadays the museum's collection holds more than 5,000 individual specimens, which on the other hand represent more than 600 meteorites. There is also the star sample in this collection - a half-ton meteorite that was found in Kansas on a farmer's field. And even more than that, museum also has a tiny sample from Mars. Anyways, microscopes itself, play the most important role in this research and making new discoveries.