Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball
Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2010. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-36). [Spoiler alert:] On January 18, 2000, a meteoroid 4 meters in diameter hit th...
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ftmit:oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/60837 2023-06-11T04:17:12+02:00 Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball Secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball Berdahl, James Scott Thomas Levenson. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies 2010 36 p. application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60837 eng eng Massachusetts Institute of Technology http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60837 697839233 M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 Graduate Program in Science Writing Thesis 2010 ftmit 2023-05-29T07:26:34Z Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2010. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-36). [Spoiler alert:] On January 18, 2000, a meteoroid 4 meters in diameter hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded over the Yukon Territory in northern Canada. The size of the fireball and the contrail that it left behind caught the attention of meteoriticists, who suspected it was a carbonaceous chondrite. Amongst the public, however, reactions to the event were varied, and conspiracy theorists emerged, claiming that the meteor had been a failed weapons test conducted by the United States military. A week after the fall, outdoorsman Jim Brook discovered black meteorites on the frozen surface of Tagish Lake, in northern British Columbia. He kept the stones pristine: frozen and untouched-a first for any meteorite fall. He made his discovery known to a few scientists only after they agreed to confidentiality, and those scientists confirmed that he had found a carbonaceous chondrite. Alan Hildebrand and Peter Brown put together an expedition to recover more fragments of the rare meteorite, interviewing eyewitnesses to reconstruct the trajectory of the bolide, but recovery efforts were hampered by deep snow. A second expedition returned in the spring when, for a short window, the fragile chondrites were exposed on the melting lake ice, and collection was successful. The secrecy surrounding these expeditions contributed to the idea that a cover-up was taking place; that the meteorite was not real. But scientific analysis, conducted by Mike Zolensky and many others, has proven otherwise. The Tagish Lake Meteorite appears to be a new type of meteorite, with ties to CI and CM type chondrites, possibly from the D type asteroids. It has the highest concentrations of carbon observed in any extraterrestrial sample, and an abundance of presolar grains. Rich in extraterrestrial organic compounds and ... Thesis Tagish Yukon DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Yukon Canada British Columbia ENVELOPE(-125.003,-125.003,54.000,54.000) Tagish ENVELOPE(-134.272,-134.272,60.313,60.313) Tagish Lake ENVELOPE(-134.233,-134.233,59.717,59.717) |
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DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
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English |
topic |
Graduate Program in Science Writing |
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Graduate Program in Science Writing Berdahl, James Scott Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball |
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Graduate Program in Science Writing |
description |
Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2010. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-36). [Spoiler alert:] On January 18, 2000, a meteoroid 4 meters in diameter hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded over the Yukon Territory in northern Canada. The size of the fireball and the contrail that it left behind caught the attention of meteoriticists, who suspected it was a carbonaceous chondrite. Amongst the public, however, reactions to the event were varied, and conspiracy theorists emerged, claiming that the meteor had been a failed weapons test conducted by the United States military. A week after the fall, outdoorsman Jim Brook discovered black meteorites on the frozen surface of Tagish Lake, in northern British Columbia. He kept the stones pristine: frozen and untouched-a first for any meteorite fall. He made his discovery known to a few scientists only after they agreed to confidentiality, and those scientists confirmed that he had found a carbonaceous chondrite. Alan Hildebrand and Peter Brown put together an expedition to recover more fragments of the rare meteorite, interviewing eyewitnesses to reconstruct the trajectory of the bolide, but recovery efforts were hampered by deep snow. A second expedition returned in the spring when, for a short window, the fragile chondrites were exposed on the melting lake ice, and collection was successful. The secrecy surrounding these expeditions contributed to the idea that a cover-up was taking place; that the meteorite was not real. But scientific analysis, conducted by Mike Zolensky and many others, has proven otherwise. The Tagish Lake Meteorite appears to be a new type of meteorite, with ties to CI and CM type chondrites, possibly from the D type asteroids. It has the highest concentrations of carbon observed in any extraterrestrial sample, and an abundance of presolar grains. Rich in extraterrestrial organic compounds and ... |
author2 |
Thomas Levenson. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies |
format |
Thesis |
author |
Berdahl, James Scott |
author_facet |
Berdahl, James Scott |
author_sort |
Berdahl, James Scott |
title |
Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball |
title_short |
Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball |
title_full |
Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball |
title_fullStr |
Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball |
title_full_unstemmed |
Morning light : the secret history of the Tagish Lake Fireball |
title_sort |
morning light : the secret history of the tagish lake fireball |
publisher |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60837 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-125.003,-125.003,54.000,54.000) ENVELOPE(-134.272,-134.272,60.313,60.313) ENVELOPE(-134.233,-134.233,59.717,59.717) |
geographic |
Yukon Canada British Columbia Tagish Tagish Lake |
geographic_facet |
Yukon Canada British Columbia Tagish Tagish Lake |
genre |
Tagish Yukon |
genre_facet |
Tagish Yukon |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60837 697839233 |
op_rights |
M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 |
_version_ |
1768376143820357632 |