[meteorite-list] NPA 01-15-1970 Scientists Agog over (Lost City) Meteorite

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: News Journal
City: Mansfield, Ohio
Date: Thursday, January 15, 1970
Page: 5

Scientists Agog over Meteorite
By VICTOR COHN

     WASHINGTON (PTS) Space watchers have rushed to Washington for study of 
what a Aeronautics and Space Administration official calls the "freshest 
meteorite ever examined."
     Studying a meteorite quickly is especially important to biologists, 
looking for chemical forms that might reveal the beginning of life elsewhere 
in the solar system. Meteorites lying on the ground quickly become 
contaminated by earthly molecules.
     The new meteorite was spotted falling in the mid west sky Jan. 3 by 
some of the 16 automatic telescopes of the seven-state Prairie Network, a 
joint NASA-Smithsonian astrophysical observatory operation.
     Six days later the remnant of the Jan, 3 falling star was found near 
Lost City, Okla. - the first ever found by the network though thousands have 
been photographed.
     It weighs 22.6 pounds and is said to be "slightly magnetic." Eight 
billion meteors strike the earth's atmosphere everyday, but all but five to 
10 burn out before reaching the ground.  And only a few of these are 
discovered, usually too late for some kinds of study.
     The Prairie Network was established in 1962 and started operating in 
1964, both to photograph meteorites and to try to find them.
     Its telescopes operate nightly in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, 
Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Operations are directed from the 
astrophysical laboratory's Cambridge, Mass. headquarters.

(end)

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
www.meteoritearticles.com