Who is considered to be the Father of Meteoritics?
535774
In 1794 Ernst Friedrich Chladni (klad' nee), considered the father of meteoritics, published a book in which he concluded that stone and iron masses did fall out of the sky and were associated with high speed fireballs.\n\nPersonally, I think Gene Shoemaker should be called the father of asteroid impacts.
730514
Most rocks thought to be meteorites are not. There are what they call "meteorwrongs". I found a rock myself that's all metal and rather heavy. That's how I found this site. You could also take it to a museum. Someone there will know. Take a look at these pictures.\n.
156825
Well, first I probably should know what a somer meteorite is, right? But you wanted answers, not more questions, right? Sorry, again. Okay, but be warned that a renowned physics professor at the University of Texas, a Dr. Steven Wienberg, I think (I hope!) it was, once reamarked about how remarkable it seems that our questions always honestly generate far more new questions than answers, so I'm not completely out of line, here, contrary to what may be quite conventionally viewed as popular opinion, especially in this context, i.e. an experimental situation, to wit; Yahoo! ANSWERS, a beta program.\nI believe Dr. Weinberg was involved somewhat in chaos theory, among other quite facinating things, I'm sure.\nIf memory serves me right, the term "carbonaceous" refers to, specifically, a geological era or period characteristic in reference to the more general use of the term as being rich in carbon, or consisting of carbon. Given carbon to be often associated with our familiar forms of DNA-based life, if it can be reasonably and plausibly demonstrated that any significant quantity or quality of carbon was introduced into the terrestrial environment via space, then this should prove to be interesting, at least, if not, indeed, rather provocative and even potentially quite instructive in terms of proper, universally themed deictic and didactic.\nSo, in my expert opinion, as the world's very first, ever, formal fact theorist, my best answer to your question is, "Good Question!"\nKeep up the good work, and keep excellent track of your sources, even though they shall invariably change with "progress" and "improvement" such as that so far demonstrated by several millennia of so-so documented record. (Everyone, especially the Catholic Church, for example, wants to rewrite history. Even the noble scientists pursuing "nothing but the truth", and so on in their quest to convert followers to their newest, "modern" religion, in theory AND practice, have been known to tamper with data for personal ambition, just a bit too frequently for comfort, among other things...)
92532
The big bang; the theory that the solar system was created by a large explosion of dust and gas. The dust and gas was pulled together over many years by gravity and formed the planets.
877460
Mendeleev is best known for his work on the periodic table\n\nhttp://www.chemistry.co.nz/mendeleev.htm
354235
antoine-laurent de lavoisier, of course, who is also considered the father of modern chemistry.\ndue to his prominence in the french government, he was beheaded by revolutionists later... shame, really
277225
The largest meteorite ever found is the Hoba meteorite of South Africa.  It weighed 60 tons.  The smallest meteorite would be the size of dust or even smaller (depending on whether or not you were using a magnifying glass as a visual aid)
288606
Luis Alvarez is the scientist who proposed the theory you mention.\n\nAlan Hildebrand was the first scientist to identify the impact site. In 1990 he found the ancient crater off the Yucatan Peninsula, near Chicxulub, Mexico.\n\nThis website for confirmation and more details --> http://web.ukonline.co.uk/a.buckley/dino.htm\n\nGod is spelled B-I-G B-A-N-G\nPBrax@netscape.com
485426
Euclid.\nGreek geometer who wrote the Elements , the world's most definitive text on geometry. The book synthesized earlier knowledge about geometry, and was used for centuries in western Europe as a geometry textbook. The text began with definitions, postulates ("Euclid's postulates "), and common opinions, then proceeded to obtain results by rigorous geometric proof. Euclid also proved what is generally known as Euclid's second theorem:  the number of primes  is infinite.  The beautiful proof Euclid gave of this theorem is still a gem and is generally acknowledged to be one of the "classic" proofs of all times in terms of its conciseness and clarity. In the Elements , Euclid used the method of exhaustion and reductio ad absurdum. He also discussed the so-called Euclidean algorithm  for finding the greatest common divisor  of two numbers, and is credited with the well-known proof of the Pythagorean theorem. \nNeither the year nor place of his birth have been established, nor the circumstances of his death, although he is known to have lived and worked in Alexandria for much of his life. In addition, no bust which can be verified to be his likeness is known (Tietze 1965, p. 8).
769058
A little more specifically, meteorites contain little inclusions called "chondrules" which have not been melted and reformed since they first formed in the proto-planetary disk around our sun.  All rocks we find on Earth or any other world have been formed since that time; the "fingerprint" of what conditions were like in space before becoming part of a planet is lost. This is not the case for chondrules in meteorites.\n\nChondrules give us insight into the sorts of particles that were available for larger bodies (and eventually planets) to form from.\n\nYou can read about chondrules on wikipedia.\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondrule\n\nAsteroids are examples of the smallest gravitationally bound objects in the solar system.  These are possible building blocks of protoplanets (enough of them stick together and you can have enough gravity to start pulling dust and even gas right out of the proto-solar disk).  By understanding their characteristics, we can more accurately model the formation of protoplanets.
599046
UPDATED!!!\n\nIt is taken seriously, and is now generally accepted as the primary cause of the dinosaurs' demise.  there may have been additional factors, but a meteorite impact is considered to be the biggest one.\n\nFor a long time, however, it was believed that meteroites only struck the earth in the past, and after that initial bombardment, the danger passed.  And most scientists demanded a "smoking gun."  A crater.  That crater was finally found...under water.  Off of the Yucatan Penninsula.  When the meteorite first made contact with the surface of the earth, the top point of the giant rock was six miles in the sky!!  It left a crater 25 miles deep.  Imagine standing on the eastern edge of the Grand Canyon.  If that was the Yucatan Crater, the other side of it would have engulfed the casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada!\n\nThe confirmation that it was an asteroid (or meteorite) strike that killed the dinosaurs was the detection of an element called iridium, which is common in space, but rare on earth.  Another indicator is the presence of shocked quartz close to the area of impact.  There are no normal geological processes powerful enough to shock quartz, but a meteorite, if it was big enough, could do it.  Then as the meteorite and the rock with which it impacts is vaporized and blown up into the earths atmosphere, the huge cloud of dust spreads out over the world and eventually settles back down\n\nScientists can tell when the impact occured because after a certain level of geological stratus (layers of sediment laid down over time), dinosaurs are no longer found.  At all.  When they analysed the materials in this layer of sedentary rock, they found unusually high levels of iridium.\n\nSuch impacts are not necessarily periodic events.  Such a thing absolutely will happen to the earth again.  Not if.  When.  And nobody knows when it will happen.  Astronomers have identified thousands of Near Earth Objects.  Any one of these could be the next to strike us, or perhaps one that we missed.\n\nBut it WILL happen.\n\n"if the planet would have been in the outer reaches how can it really be so impactful that it jolted numerous rocks towards earth"\n\nBecause that far out in space, very small changes in direction can have major impacts on the objects trajectory after it has traveled millions or billions of miles.  If you aim a rifle at the bullsey of a target that is 100 meters away and move the barrel end of the rifle just one centimeter, the bullet may miss the target completely.  Just that small distance can be a big miss at a long range.  Likewise, if an asteroid is on a trajectory that doesn't put earth in any danger makes only a slight change, possibly no more than the width of a human hair, it may wind up on a path that will cause it to crash into earth, or a different planet.  This change in the asteroid's path may be caused by the gravitational pull of a nearby planet, or by one asteroid gently bumping into another.  And this can happen anywhere.  While the asteroid is in orbit within our solar system, or in what is known as the "Asteroid Belt."\n\n"also if the planet is undiscovered how can they say anything about its involvement with earth being peiodic"\n\nGood question.  For a long time, scientists suspected that there was another planet beyond Pluto.  The reasons for this were that although this other planet could not be seen, its gravitational effects on other objects could be detected.  I don't know what the specifics of this process\nwere, but perhaps they measured a slight "wobble" in the orbit of pluto that had to have been caused by something with enough mass to cause the wobble.  Astronomers referred to this object as Planet X.  This planet has now been discovered and verified.  It was named Xena.\n\nIt should also be noted that the cause of a change in an asteroid's path doesn't have to be cused by a planet that is very far away.  There are
728883
Pretty much the father of the scientific method:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon\n\nHe's also been suspected of being Shakespeare's ghostwriter, but that's not science...
916267
Euclid (also referred to as Euclid of Alexandria) (Greek: Εὐκλείδης) (c. 325–c. 265 BC), a Greek mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Hellenistic Egypt, almost certainly during the reign of Ptolemy I (323 BC–283 BC), is often considered to be the "father of geometry". His most popular work, Elements, is thought to be one of the most successful textbooks in the history of mathematics. Within it, the properties of geometrical objects are deduced from a small set of axioms, thereby founding the axiomatic method of mathematics.\n\nAlthough best-known for its geometric results, the Elements also includes various results in number theory, such as the connection between perfect numbers and Mersenne primes, the proof of the infinitude of prime numbers, Euclid's lemma on factorization (which lead to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, on uniqueness of prime factorizations), and the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers.\n\nEuclid also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, and possibly quadric surfaces. Neither the year nor place of his birth have been established, nor the circumstances of his death.\nIn geometry, the parallel postulate, also called Euclid's fifth postulate since it is the fifth postulate in Euclid's Elements, is a distinctive axiom in what is now called Euclidean geometry. It states that:\n\nIf a line segment intersects two straight lines forming two interior angles on the same side that sum to less than two right angles, then the two lines, if extended indefinitely, meet on that side on which the angles sum to less than two right angles.\n\nEuclidean geometry is the study of geometry that satisfies all of Euclid's axioms, including the parallel postulate. A geometry where the parallel postulate cannot hold is known as a non-euclidean geometry. Geometry that is independent of Euclid's fifth postulate (i.e., only assumes the first four postulates) is known as absolute geometry (or, in some places, neutral geometry).
714221
Mr. Franklin \nAmadeo Avogadro\nDalton\nJ.J. thomson \nRutherfurd\nMarie and Pierre Curie\nJohannes Nicolaus Brønsted\nJohn Dalton\nEmil Erlenmeyer\nMichael Faraday\nFritz Haber\nHenri Louis Le Chatelier\nThomas Martin Lowrey\nDimitri Mendeleev\nAlfred Bernhard Nobel\nJohannes Diderik van der Waals\nneils bohr\nif u wanna know more email me and ill tell u all about them, i hope i get ur best answer award
819035
Here you go ... much more info at the links.....\n\nAncient Greece is considered by historians to be the foundation for all cultures of Western Civilization.\n\nPtolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, three of which would be of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science.\n\nCopernicus was one of the great polymaths of the Renaissance. He was a mathematician, astronomer, jurist, physician, classical scholar, governor, administrator, diplomat, economist and soldier. \n\nGalileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopher who is closely associated with the scientific revolution.  His achievements include improvements to the telescope, a variety of astronomical observations, and effective support for Copernicanism. \n\nJohannes Kepler (December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630), a key figure in the scientific revolution, was a German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and an early writer of science fiction stories.  He is best known for his laws of planetary motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi and the textbook Epitome of Copernican Astronomy.\n\nSir Isaac Newton, (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science.\n\nEdwin Hubble was an American astronomer (1889-1953), who discovered that the further away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away, which led to the conclusion that the universe is expanding.\n\nAlbert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist widely known as one of the greatest physicists of all time.  He formulated the special and general theories of relativity.
63251
Our solar system- the Sun, planets, Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, everything orbiting the sun even many times further than the orbit of Pluto- is thought to have condensed from a vast cloud of interstellar gas some billions of years ago when that cloud was shocked or squeezed by a supernova explosion. The dust and grains that condensed out of the cooling solar gas aggregated to form larger fragments of rock. Chondritic meteorites are basically just such collections of grains and fragments that have been compacted together to form a larger piece of rock and eventually small planetary bodies. Such bodies are termed planetesimals when they become roughly as large as asteroids (several kilometres to a few hundred kilometres in dimension). The larger they grow, the greater the gravitational attraction that the planetesimals exert and hence the more effectively they sweep up additional particles and rock fragments while circling the Sun. (Britannica CD) \n\nBecause that initial shockwave came from a particular direction and because the cloud was not of uniform density, the particles had a net rotation around their center of gravity. Humans subsequently identified that direction as "counterclockwise as viewed from above the north pole of the sun". As the bodies of the solar system grew by accretion, particles swept up from different distances from the center of gravity (the sun) had different orbital velocities. Analogously, water swirling down a drain moves slower further and faster closer to the center. \n\nGalileo and Newton showed that rotational energy is conserved: The sun and planets ‘inherited' their spin from the orbits of their constituent particles, so to speak. Today, some five billion years later, all that rotational energy is still conserved in the rotations and revolutions of the bodies of the solar system. Our solar system is not unchanging, though. Because of gravitational interactions between moons and their planets, between the planets, meteors and comets themselves and interactions between the solar wind and the magnetospheres of the planets, rotational energy is still be ‘traded' back and forth: Mercury orbits in a 3:2 resonance with its rotation, our day is getting longer while the moon only shows one face towards us, the rings of the gas giants are temporary phenomena,... But that's another story.\n\nIn other words, An act of GOD
1153
roito..  i'm no scientist, but the way i see it, since so many of our other elements have been hypothesized to be formed in a solar furnace, i'd take berilium to be no exception.  it's probably just left over from the nebula that produced our solar system.  However, astral bodies that collide with the earth also carry with them certain chemicals, so the source of berilium on this planet can also be attributed to some degree to those, as well.  \nhere's a neat factoid for ye..  protein strains that are slammed into the earth at those fantastic speeds known to meteors, upon impact, form amino acids...  if i can recall that episode of NOVA i saw on m'local PBS station correctly.  ;)