Like the previously discovered lunar meteorites, DOM 18666 and the other four fragments are pieces of the moon that can be studied in detail in the laboratory. Antarctic meteorite collection to nine, with others being recovered in 1987, 1994, 19. The new specimens bring the total of lunar breccias made of basalt, a volcanic rock, in the U.S. We knew immediately it was a meteoritic breccia, and we hoped, fingers-crossed, that it was from the moon.” Researchers at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, involved in classification of Antarctic finds, confirmed the mineralogy and texture of the meteorite are unmistakably lunar. “The rock was black with a greenish, translucent fusion crust, sticking out among the thousands of reddish, buff-colored terrestrial rocks in a glacial pile-up at the edge of the icefield. “We actually found the first piece the very first day of searching,” says Karner, the ANSMET team science lead. Meteorites, once found, are carefully collected, characterized and added to the catalog of samples available to planetary scientists. Working in teams, they traverse the ice with snowmobiles for six weeks, looking for telltale characteristics of rocks that are not of this world. The five samples total nearly 100 grams (0.22 pounds, the main mass of which is officially designated DOM 18666) and was one of 865 meteorites collected by ANSMET during the 2018-2019 austral summer.Įvery December, Karner and a crew of eight volunteer meteorite hunters trek to Antarctica. The lunar meteorites were recovered from icefields near the Dominion Range (DOM) of the Transantarctic Mountains, roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the South Pole. Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET) field team, led by Jim Karner at the University of Utah and Ralph Harvey at Case Western Reserve University. The new meteorites were found by the 2018-19 U.S. A piece of the lunar breccia held by teflon-tipped stainless steel tongs by the ANSMET 2018-19 field team.
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