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Meteorites

Mysterious Martian rock found in Sahara desert

Last updated Thursday, January 3, 2013 - 6:12pm

LOS ANGELES — Scientists are abuzz about a coal-colored rock from Mars that landed in the Sahara desert: A yearlong analysis revealed it’s quite different from other Martian meteorites.

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Wearing blue flight suits, four NASA researchers walk to the zeppelin, Eureka, at McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., that will be used to search for pieces of a meteorite Thursday, May 3, 2012. The researches from NASA and the SETI Institute are hoping to spot sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

NASA uses blimp to search for meteorite fragments

Matt Weiser The Sacramento Bee

Last updated Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - 9:42am

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It's not every day that NASA descends on your backyard, hunting for clues to extraterrestrial life.

But that is the drama unfolding in and around the community of Lotus, Calif., along the South Fork of the American River in El Dorado County. Scientists from NASA and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute are hunting for pieces of a meteorite that plunged to Earth on April 22.

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Ryan Turner, 33, a geophysics and seismology student at UC Berkeley, examines fragments along Highway 49 in Coloma, California, to see if they are fragments from a meteorite called CM chondrite in Coloma, California, Saturday, April 28, 2012. (Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Meteor hunters strike pay dirt in California's Gold Country

Diana Marcum Los Angeles Times

Last updated Monday, April 30, 2012 - 2:17pm

COLOMA-LOTUS VALLEY, Calif. -- In the week since a fireball shot across the sky and exploded, scattering a rare type of meteorite over California's Gold Country, these hills have drawn a new rush of treasure seekers.

Once again there are lively saloons, fortune hunters jockeying for prime spots and astounding tales of luck -- including that of Brenda Salveson, a local who found a valuable space rock while walking her dog Sheldon, named after the theoretical physicist on the TV show "The Big Bang Theory."

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Robert Ward displays one of two pieces of a meteorite he found at a park in Lotus, Calif., Wednesday, April 25, 2012. Ward found the pieces from a meteor that was probably about the size of a minivan when it entered the Earth's atmosphere with a loud boom about 8 a.m. Sunday. The rocks came from a meteor, believed to between 4 to 5 billion years old. Ward, who has been hunting and collecting meteorites for more than 20 years, said they are believed to be "one of the oldest things known to man and one of the rarest types of meteorites there is.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Meteorites found along path of fireball

Scott Sonner The Associated Press

Last updated Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 10:40am

RENO, Nev. -- Robert Ward has been hunting and collecting meteorites for more than 20 years, so he knew he'd found something special in the Sierra foothills along the path of a flaming fireball that shook parts of Northern California and Nevada with a sonic boom over the weekend.

And scientists have confirmed his suspicions: it's one of the more primitive types of space rocks out there, dating to the early formation of the solar system 4 to 5 billion years ago.

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