Cosmogenic rare gas contents of iron meteorites

FEB 01, 1960

The following paper was presented at the Spring Meeting of the New York State Section of the American Physical Society at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in April 1959. The author is a staff member of the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3056814

Oliver A. Schaeffer

So reads in part what is one of the earliest descriptions of a meteorite fall. The account continues with a further description of the fall, along with possible explanations of the origin of the stone. Throughout antiquity and during the middle ages there were various reports of stones from heaven. The stones were preserved in museums and religious places. For, after all, a stone from heaven must surely be the evidence of some great force in nature. With the enlightenment of the Renaissance and especially with the cold light of scientific inquiry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, meteorites were relegated to the ignominy of religious superstition.

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More about the authors

Oliver A. Schaeffer, Brookhaven National Laboratory.