From the Final Frontier ? . . . Or Not ? . . .
By Grace F.
The purpose of this experiment was to see if a series of tests could prove that a rock is a terrestrial earth rock or a non-terrestrial meteorite. To carry this out, 100 rocks were collected to be tested; then to meteorites were obtained to be tested as well. All of the specimens were first classified by their color: black, brown, yellowish-brown, or other. Then each was tested to see if it contained iron. To do this a suspended magnet was gently toward each specimen; if there was an attraction, iron was present. Then the specific gravity of each rock was found by dividing their mass by their volume. The last test was to see if the specimen(s) contained metal specks. To do this, each rock was briefly held against a coarse grinder and then inspected.
After completing the experiment, I accepted my
hypothesis based on the following results. All the terrestrial rock results
showed that there was no reason to believe that these specimens were meteorites.
The meteorite test results, however, clearly presented evidence that these
rocks had too many meteorite characteristics to be classified as terrestrial.
For example, all the meteorites tested had a specific gravity of over 3.3.
and contained iron. Both the specific gravity measurement (of over 3.3)
and the iron content are characteristics of meteorites. In the conclusion,
these tests proved reliable in their ability to differentiate between terrestrial
and non-terrestrial (i.e. meteorite) rock.