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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ
The Vatican Observatory

Br. Consolmagno and The Chicago Astronomer

I had the great pleasure to sit in on one of Br. Consolmango's lectures regarding meteors, asteroids and sub-atomic particles.

Below is the lecture description:

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Like archaeologists learning about an ancient civilization by examining its scrap heaps, meteoriticists learn about the formation of the solar system by examining the bits of space debris left behind. But piecing together shards of pottery is easier than assembling a picture of planet formation from astronomical scraps - we know what a pot should look like!

Examine evidence from patterns in meteorite populations and the abundances
of rare atomic species in meteorites. Consider several possible ways these pieces could fit together into a grand image of how the solar system formed.

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This was quite an interesting lecture on the composition and origin of meteors. He started out with meteor descriptions and showed cool movies of meteors shooting in our atmosphere...and the one that hit outside of Chicago in 2003 was facinating...one I never saw before.

The second part of the lecture dealt with atomic structure, isotopes and the decay of elemental properties.

And so, after this crash course in nuclear physics, we were back in discussing the formations of asteroids/meteors and how we can tell where they might have come from. Discussing supernovea, elemental behavior and the interaction of external influences on atomic structure was quite fascinating.

There about 10,000 meteorites that slam into the earth every year, but most fall into the oceans and those that fall on dry land around us, are mostly ignored.

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