McREL hosts Web presentation on Antarctic meteorite expedition
August 6, 2008
Denver—On August 8, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) will host an interactive live Web cast featuring a presentation by scientist Lucy McFadden, co-investigator of NASA’s Dawn Mission and a member of the National Science Foundation (NSF) team who went to Antarctica in 2007 to search for meteorites.
In the presentation, "Searching for Meteorites at the Bottom of the World," Dr. McFadden, who is also a research professor in the University of Maryland's Astronomy Department, will recount her experiences as one of eight field team members of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program (ANSMET). The team spent 42 days from late November 2007 to January 2008 searching for meteorites on foot and by snowmobile in the Miller Range of Antarctica.
The mission of ANSMET, an annual expedition which was established in 1976, is to look for meteorites at the surface which result from glaciers and their ice flow. ANSMET offered McFadden an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of meteorites and apply that knowledge to her work exploring them in the solar system through NASA's NEAR, Deep Impact, Dawn, and EPOXI missions.
McREL is a nationally recognized, private, nonprofit organization located in Denver, Colo., dedicated to improving education for all students through applied research, product development and service. In 2007, McREL provided research-based guidance to educators and policymakers in 47 states across the U.S.
