Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Apollo Program, Meteoritical Society, Cosmochemistry
19 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
In unit 4 introduction, we noted that meteorites were seldom accepted to be samples of non-terrestrial objects in the past, but now we pretty much take their extraterrestrial origin for granted. We have samples of the moon, of mars and of asteroids in our meteorite collections that were all delivered for free, so it"s important that we study these materials with advanced analytical techniques to unlock their many secrets. Roughly 40 years ago, during the apollo moon program, astronauts collected 800 pounds (~363 kg) of moon rocks from the lunar surface. After studying these rocks, scientists understood that many of the meteorites they had previously collected on. Earth were actually chips from the surface of the moon. Viking 1 and viking 2 were space probes that arrived at mars in 1976; prior to touching down on the surface, they spent a great deal of time in orbit mapping and surveying mars" surface.
