Early in 2012, someone in Southern Morocco picked up 35 greenish stones, including the one shown above. Purchased by a dealer in Erfoud, Morocco, it was then resold to Stefan Ralew, a meteorite collector from Berlin.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) - the arbiter of planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919 - recently approved a proposal from the MESSENGER Science Team to assign names to nine impact craters on Mercury. In keeping with the established naming theme for craters on Mercury, all of the newly designated features are named after famous deceased artists, musicians, or authors or other contributors to the humanities.
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has identified large concentrations of hydrogen at Mercury's north pole, thought to be in the form of water ice, researchers announced today.
MESSENGER has discovered assemblages of tectonic landforms unlike any previously found on Mercury or elsewhere in the Solar System.
MESSENGER completed its 1,000th orbit of the planet closest to the Sun at 11:22 p.m. EDT on 22 June 2012. "Reaching this milestone is yet another testimony to the hard work and dedication of the full MESSENGER team that has designed, launched, and operated this highly successful spacecraft," says the mission trajectory lead Jim McAdams of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.