Willamette Meterorite essays

Willamette Meterorite essays When a star falls from the sky, it leaves a fiery trail. It does not die. Its shade goes back to its own place to shine again. The Indians sometimes find the small stars where they have fallen in he grass(Kohnen). The Willamette Meteorite is an extremely rare scientific example. The meteorite is made of nickel iron, and it weighs over 15.5 tons. It is 3.1 meters long, 2.1 meters wide, and 1.3 meters tall. This meteorite is the largest to be found in the United States, and is the sixth largest in the world. Most meteorites are formless lumps, but the Willamette Meteorite has huge craters all over the surface The nickel iron rock is a very rare kind of meteorite and is part of a class that comprises of about 600 out of a total of 25,000 meteorites so far found on the Earth's surface(AMNH Cullman Hall). Around 4.5 billion of years ago, a planet that was orbiting the sun broke into millions of pieces. Part of these fragments was the Willamette Meteorite. This planet was composed of an iron-nickel core, and the planet breaking up and cooling is evident within the meteorites microscopic make-up. After spending a long time orbiting in space the Willamette meteorite was involved in two large impacts. These impacts caused the meteorite to be re-heated and recrystallized. One of these collisions was probably the cause of the Willamette Meteorite to fall to earth. The meteorites first Earthy journey took it from Idaho to the Willamette Valley in Oregon(Kohnen). Around 13,500, when the Cordilleran Ice Sheet formed it lifted the meteorite, and when it melted it caused a flood that carved out the Oregon countryside, and left the meteorite in the Willamette Valley. Not in space, but after the long- term exposure and weathering the large cavities were formed. This occurred from interaction of rainwater with iron sulfide deposits in the meteorite, producing weak sulfuric acid. The etching by this ac...