FOUND IN METEOR

Evening Star, Issue 20428, 8 March 1930, Page 22

FOUND IN METEOR

A RARE METAL The finding of arsenic and german* ium in meteors at Cornell University was announced on January 14 (says the ‘Christian Science . Monitor’).. A report to the American Astronomical Society tells how a 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 previonsjy.Germanium, _ a rare, greyish-white metal, chemically resembling tin ana silicon, was unknown in meteors. Some meteors came 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 has yet been detected m this mass of stars out "here. _ The Cornell , analysis adds one more hit to the accumulating evidence that the entire universe mav be made of the 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 JJr Jacob Papish, professor of chemical spectroscopy, who developed the spectroscopic light analysis method. Two of the meteors examined were iron, one that fell in 1807 near Weiland, Ont., and the other at Toluca/ Mexico. Two others were <•.tony-iron, one found in 1888 at Llano del Inca, Atacama, Chile, and the other m Lvon County, Kansas. The other two were stony meteors, one of which fell near Allegan, Michigan, July 10,1899, and the other at Estacado, Crosby County, Texas. Dr Papish reported that the only other non-terrestrial reported occurrence of germanium is due to _ Rowland, who obtained evidence of its existence in the sun. Germanium was extracted from the two iron meteors, and evidence of it was. found in the others.