Moon Rocks at
Dunraven
Dunraven students were given a rare opportunity to see samples of
genuine meteorites and Moon rocks on display in both Upper and Lower
School Libraries last week. The samples of Moon rocks were brought
back to Earth by NASA astronauts during the Apollo missions in the
1970s. They are considered to be literally beyond price and were
loaned to the school by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research
Council (PPARC). For security reasons the loan, organised by Mr
Jones from the Physics Department, had to be kept secret until the
end of the exhibition!! Our students were able to view some of the
samples through microscopes and polarizing filters to reveal their
mineralogical structure.
The meteorites were from the Asteroid
Belt situated 200 million miles from Earth and included a fragment
of the Parnallee meteorite which is 4.6 billion years old. In
other words, this meteorite was formed 700 million years before the
Earth’s surface cooled to form solid rock!
