FOUND IN METEOR

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 20

FOUND IN METEOR

A Rare Metai

' The .finding, of arsenic and' germanium' in meteors at Cornell- University was announced on 14th .January (says the' "Christian Science Monitor").

A report to. tlio .American Astronomical Society tells how'<i super-sensi-tive method of analysing with light reveals these two elements in half a dozen, meteors that fell to earth from outer space in the last century. Arsenic has been suspected previously. Germanium, a rare,, •' greyish-white metal, chemically resembling tin and silicon, was unknown tin meteors.

Some meteors'came1 from the regions about the sun, but ; astronomers have identified .others as visitors from the immensely, vaster outer space regions so distant that no present telescope can disclose planets in them .if they exist. »■''■'

No element which does not-exist on earth lias yet been detected iv this mass of stars out there. The Cornell analysis adds one more bit to the accumulating evidence that the entire universe may be. made of tho same substances as the earth. It strengthens the speculation .that among the almost countless combinations ,of suns other, earths are possible. •■■ "

The meteors were analysed by Dr. Jacob Papish, professor of chemical spectroscopy, .who developed' tho spectroseopie light analysis method.

Two of tho meteors examined wore iron, ono that fell'in 181)7 near Welland,., Out., and the other at Toluca, Mcx. Two others "were stony-iron, one found in 18&S at Llano del'ltn;a, Alacamii, Chile, and the other in Lyou County, Kan. The "other two were stony meteors, one of which "".fell acar Allcgan, ' Mich,, 10th July, .1809, and tho other, at Estacado, Crosby County, Tex. " ' ' . '

" Dr. Pa pish reported that the only other non-terrestrial reported occurrence of ■germanium is dim to Rowland, who obtained evidence oil its existence in the sun. Geniuuuuut whs extracted from the two iron meteors and ovijjpjiec oJLit.wass _fpund. in..tlie_other:!. .-