Mystery Meteorite May Not Be From Mercury After All 31
gbrumfiel writes "A strange green meteorite found in Morocco caused a stir in the press earlier this month, when scientists reported that it might be the first chunk of Mercury ever found here on earth. But scientists who've been puzzling over the stone since then say the accumulating evidence may point in a different direction. The 4.56-billion-year-old rock might have come from the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. If true, then it would provide clues about the origin of the solar system as a whole instead of the origin of the innermost planet."
does it matter? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
does it matter?
Of course it matters. We need to know where it came from so the US Congress can pass a law against any of them landing in the US. Most of these Congressional "geniuses" don't believe that the Earth, Solar System, Universe, etc are billions of years old. They'll want to ban any physical evidence that can be used to challenge their ignorance.
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does it matter?
Of course it matters. We need to know where it came from so the US Congress can pass a law against any of them landing in the US. Most of these Congressional "geniuses" don't believe that the Earth, Solar System, Universe, etc are billions of years old. They'll want to ban any physical evidence that can be used to challenge their ignorance.
This is a bizarre argument.
First, assuming that all liberals=enlightened and all conservatives=ignorant and superstitious, this would mean that:
1) The vast majority (thus able to ram their legislation through) of Congress is conservative. While it's true that currently Reps outnumber Dems overall, 289 vs 241,it's not all that wide a gap. Dems control the Senate.
2) All conservatives/ republicans are christian fundies and believe in the young earth theory. In fact it's only a very small fringe group
Did the solar system originate as a hole? (Score:2)
Need more information!
Easy to determine (Score:4, Funny)
Green rock, from outer space, found in northern Africa?
Miss Tessmacher! Cancel the tickets to Addis Ababa! We're going to Morroco!
Brainstorming here (Score:1)
Maybe they discovered a discarded prototype of Dell's $50 handheld computer?
Headline: (Score:1)
Mysterious Moroccan Meteorite Maybe Mercurian
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More Meaningful Measurements Mean Maybe Misrepresented.
Yes, an asteroid should be more likely (Score:2)
Good to see some sense.
I'm also happy that that Russian metor didn't land in North or South Korea.
Maybe it is from ... (Score:1)
Uranus
How did they come to that anyhow? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, why would they think they have any idea at all where it came from? Space is massive. There are chucks of rocks flying all over the place left over from the formation of our solar system. Not to mention other systems. We are blasted every single day with tons of space rocks. I am sure that there is a pretty high chance that none of it is coming from a planet but is rather coming from the millions of asteroids flying about.
What, do they say, hey! this planet is also kinda that color, it must be fro
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How did they come to that anyhow? (Score:5, Informative)
Your post reads like "How do they know some stars are planets anyways? What makes one sparkly thing in the sky different from all the rest? Unpossible to differentiate."
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Reading that...
That's important because it means it is a piece of a world that was large enough to have differentiated into a rocky mantle and a metal core.
Could be us one day :)
I can't seem to find anything on why it's green? I'm kinda curious...
Re: (Score:2)
Considering that current cosmological theories indicate that the mass-energy in the universe is ~5% ordinary matter, ~25% dark matter, and the other ~70% is Dark Energy [wikipedia.org], in one sense space is quite massive (about fourteen times more massive than all the "stars, planets, moons, dust, and the like" combined).
Disingenuous or just dumb? (Score:2)