New Year, New Meteorites

The midnight Sun illuminating camp, taken by Cindy at 12:01 am on Jan. 1st, 2020

Happy New Year! The ANSMET team is so happy to be in Davis Ward for the start of 2020. Here in Antarctica, we were among the first in the world to experience the new year and we witnessed a midnight Sun (pictured above)! We have had a productive few days, finding and collecting (part of the collection process pictured below) about 40 new space rocks. At the end of the season, these meteorites, along with the others we collect, will be transported to Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, TX. At JSC, the meteorite processing team will begin processing all the meteorites we find so that they can be made available to the global scientific community. The JSC team sent all of us holiday gifts, along with the meteorite collection materials; thank you so much! We want to send some appreciation back to you at JSC and thank you for all you do for the meteorite community.

Alex and Nicole working together to take a picture of a meteorite with its number. This is one of the many steps of the sterile meteorite collection process – we do this for every single meteorite!

-Emilie and Cindy from snowy Davis Ward, Antarctica

 

Note from RPH:  I got a call from Jim Karner late on Monday;  he was in Christchurch and getting ready to head home on New Year’s Eve our time.  I don’t know exactly what time his plane would have crossed the dateline, but I think he got to celebrate twice!   I’m thankful that he gets to be with his wife and daughter and dogs and everyone early this year. Being away from home in the service of science is simply part of the deal when you’re dedicated to ANSMET, but Jim has given several months a year over the past decade.  Welcome home, Kiwibear!