MOON ROCK FOUND IN ANTARCTICA
According to the website of Astronomy Magazine, Geologists from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland searched an ice field in Antarctica in 2005 for over six weeks in hopes of finding meteorites. On December 11, 2005, they found a rare meteorite that came from the moon. The geologists were a part of the U.S. Antarctic Search for Meteorites program. The lunar meteorite is the size of a golfball and is 5-ounces. It was found on the Miller Range of the Transantarctic Mountains, which is about 460 miles from the South Pole. This Moon rock is extremely special because unlike the other meteorites collected, because it consists of a coarse-grained material similar to basaltic lava that would be found in the lunar maria. (I learned in my astronomy class that maria are craters on the moon that filled with lava and then cooled.) It has crystals made of a type of glass that forms during an impact such as when it hit the earth. According to Astronomy Magazine, "the meteorite's large crystals suggest this Moon rock slowly cooled deep inside the lunar crust."