New Martian Meteorites and What They Tell us about Mars – a Talk by Carl B. Agee, Ph.D (director, Institute of Meteoritics)
7:00-8:30 pm Thursday, September 24
The only samples of Mars that we have on Earth are a small number of meteorites. A meteorite formally named NWA 7034 (and informally called Black Beauty) was found in the western Sahara in 2011; and this meteorite has changed some of our ideas about Mars. Dr. Carl Agee led the team that was the first to recognize that this meteorite was from Mars and yet was unlike any of the other 100 or so known Martian meteorites. Join Dr. Agee as he discusses what we know about Martian meteorites and what they tell us about Mars.
After the lecture, attendees will get a private look at the Museum’s special exhibit “It Came from Mars.” The exhibit contains Martian meteorite specimens, including a piece of Black Beauty, on loan from the Institute of Meteoritics.
Dr. Carl Agee is the Director of the Institute of Meteoritics (IOM), Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, UNM. Founded in 1944, the IOM was one of the first institutions in the world devoted to the study of meteorites with state-of-the-art laboratory facilities staffed with research scientists and students. The IOM has an extremely valuable meteorite research collection and is currently building a new Meteorite Museum that will be open to the public. Dr. Agee’s research career has included time as the Chief Scientist for Astromaterials at NASA Johnson Space Center. His major areas of research are the origin and evolution of planetary interiors and high-pressure experimental techniques in mineralogy. He earned his B.A. from the Univ of California at Berkeley and his M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.
7:00 pm Thursday, September 24, at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, 1801 Mountain Rd. NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104. (505) 841-2800. Visit: www.nmnaturalhistory.org
Tickets are $6.00 ($5 members, $4 students). Doors open at 6:15 pm.
Purchase in advance online to guarantee your seats, go to www.NMnaturalhistory.org or purchase tickets at the admissions desk the night of the event.