Purdue News

March 15, 1983 Identical Meteorites Found On Earth And Moon WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Studies of a meteorite found in Antarctica indicate the stone is almost "identical" to samples brought back from the moon, said a Purdue University professor at Thursday's (3/17) Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston. Michael Lipschutz, a professor of cosmochemistry at Purdue, compared 16 trace elements of the Antarctic meteorite to lunar samples brought back by Apollo astronauts. Trace elements, such as bismuth, tellurium and thallium are good indicators of what a meteorite has gone through in time and are particularly sensitive to heat, he explained. "The fact that a rock landed on earth without signs of shock or heat stress is astounding," he said. "Theoretically, the blast needed to send a rock fragment to earth from the moon would generate a tremendous amount of heat, and could cause changes in composition." The force of the impact in such a blast would propel a rock to earth at about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) per second, said Lipschutz. In addition, the rock was exposed to elements on the Antarctic ice sheet for an unknown period of time, he said. "This finding supports scientific speculation that a number of meteorites found in Antarctica could have originated from Mars," he added. "If a meteorite can arrive on earth from the moon with no harm — the possibility of a rock fragment surviving the journey from Mars looks more realistic." Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu