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and the Hon. M. Thornberry about a rock he believes to be a meteorite from Mars. He requested that the government investigate this rock, which he calls the Frass rock, for its potential importance to the space program. You forwarded their concerns to Dr. D. Black, Director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the matter was forwarded to me. I am expert on martian rocks, and so am competent for this investigation. To evaluate Mr. Moore’s claims, I have applied usual and customary tests for determining if a rock is a meteorite, and for determining what planetary body a rock may have come from. The standard for recognition as a meteorite is comparison of its surface texture with those of known meteorites. The standards for a Martian origin are data on Mars rocks and soil acquired by the Viking and Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, and data on the recognized martian meteorites. The martian meteorites themselves are accepted as martian by comparison with Viking lander spacecraft analyses of Mars rocks, soil, and atmosphere. During this inquiry, I examined the Frass rock in Mr. Moore’s presence, received samples of the rock from him, and received results of chemical and age analyses of the Frass rock which he had purchased. Further, I examined the Frass rock with optical microscopy, and studied the chemical analyses in relation to published analyses of Earth rocks and meteorites. I have found no evidence that the Frass rock is a meteorite, and no evidence that it came from Mars. The results of every test on the Frass rock are consistent with an Earthly origin, and many results are definitely no

Lunar Meteorite NWA 11421: X-Ray Tomogrpahy & Preliminary Petrology

Lunar meteorite NWA 11421 is provisionally placed with the "NWA 8046 clan" of similar stones (the "Algerian Megafind") of which at least 33 kg has been recovered. NWA 11421 and pairs are feldspathic regolith breccias, with angular fragments of plagioclase-rich clasts in a dark glassy matrix. Most members of this clan contain < 5.5% FeO and < 0.3 ppm Th. To date, there have been no petrographic studies reported of these lunar meteorites. An 11.7 gm sample of NWA 11421 was purchased from Marcin Cimala, holder of the main mass - this sample is consistent in all respects with the formal meteorite description. This particular sample was selected because it appeared to contain a fragment of dunite

On the induced gauge invariant mass

We derive a general expression for the gauge invariant mass (m_G) for an Abelian gauge field, as induced by vacuum polarization, in 1+1 dimensions. From its relation to the chiral anomaly, we show that m_G has to satisfy a certain quantization condition. This quantization can be, on the other hand, explicitly verified by using the exact general expression for the gauge invariant mass in terms of the fermion propagator. This result is applied to some explicit examples, exploring the possibility of having interesting physical situations where the value of $m_G$ departs from its canonical value. We also study the possibility of generalizing the results to the 2+1 dimensional case at finite temperature, showing that there are indeed situations where a finite and non-vanishing gauge invariant mass is induced.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, 3 figures (pstex

Pigeonholing planetary meteorites: The lessons of misclassification of EET87521 and ALH84001

The last few years have provided two noteworthy examples of misclassifications of achondritic meteorites because the samples were new kinds of meteorites from planetary rather than asteroidal parent bodies. Basaltic lunar meteorite EET87521 was misclassified as a eucrite and SNC (martian) orthopyroxenite ALH84001 was misclassified as a diogenite. In classifying meteorites we find what we expect: we pigeonhole meteorites into known categories most of which were derived from the more common asteroidal meteorites. But the examples of EET8752 and ALH84001 remind us that planets are more complex than asteroids and exhibit a wider variety of rock types. We should expect variety in planetary meteorites and we need to know how to recognize them when we have them. Our intent here is to show that our asteroidal perspective is inappropriate for planetary meteorites

Luttinger theorem for a spin-density-wave state

We obtained the analog of the Luttinger relation for a commensurate spin-density-wave state. We show that while the relation between the area of the occupied states and the density of particles gets modified in a simple and predictable way when the system becomes ordered, a perturbative consideration of the Luttinger theorem does not work due to the presence of an anomaly similar to the chiral anomaly in quantum electrodynamics.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 1 figure embedded in the text, ps-file is also available at http://lifshitz.physics.wisc.edu/www/morr/morr_homepage.htm

Generalized parity transformations in the regularized Chern-Simons theory

We study renormalization effects in the Abelian Chern-Simons (CS) action. These effects can be non-trivial when the gauge field is coupled to dynamical matter, since the regularization of the UV divergences in the model forces the introduction of a parity even piece in the gauge field action. This changes the classical (odd) transformation properties of the pure CS action. This effect, already discussed for the case of a lattice regularization by F. Berruto, M.C. Diamantini and P. Sodano in hep-th/0004203, is also present when the theory is defined in the continuum and, indeed, it is a manifestation of a more general `anomalous' effect, since it happens for every regularization scheme. We explore the physical consequences of this anomaly. We also show that generalized, nonlocal parity transformations can be defined in such a way that the regularized theory is odd, and that those transformations tend to the usual ones when the cutoff is removed. These generalized transformations play a role that is tantamount to the deformed symmetry corresponding to Ginsparg-Wilson fermions [2] (in an even number of spacetime dimensions).Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, references added and typos correcte

Conference on Early Mars: Geologic and Hydrologic Evolution, Physical and Chemical Environments, and the Implications for Life

Topics considered include: Geology alteration and life in an extreme environment; developing a chemical code to identify magnetic biominerals; effect of impacts on early Martin geologic evolution; spectroscopic identification of minerals in Hematite-bearing soils and sediments; exopaleontology and the search for a Fossil record on Mars; geochemical evolution of the crust of Mars; geological evolution of the early earth;solar-wind-induced erosion of the Mars atmosphere. Also included geological evolution of the crust of Mars

Science career aspiration and science capital in China and UK: a comparative study using PISA data

The concept of science capital has a growing influence in science education research for understanding young people’s science trajectories. Popularised in the UK, this paper aims to extend and evaluate the applicability of science capital in the context of China by drawing on PISA2015. More specifically, we make use of existing items in the PISA2015 survey as a proxy for operationalising the construct of science capital to explore the science career aspirations and attainments of 15-year-old Chinese and UK students (n=23,998). Our findings indicate that science capital has more explanatory power for understanding UK students’ science career aspirations than for Chinese students, where science attainment seems most important. We raise the potential challenge for Chinese students to convert their science capital into scientific self-efficacy and science career aspirations as we highlight the importance of recognising cultural and national differences in operationalising science capital

Dipole binding in a cosmic string background due to quantum anomalies

We propose quantum dynamics for the dipole moving in cosmic string background and show that the classical scale symmetry of a particle moving in cosmic string background is still restored even in the presence of dipole moment of the particle. However, we show that the classical scale symmetry is broken due to inequivalent quantization of the the non-relativistic system. The consequence of this quantum anomaly is the formation of bound state in the interval \xi\in(-1,1). The inequivalent quantization is characterized by a 1-parameter family of self-adjoint extension parameter \Sigma. We show that within the interval \xi\in(-1,1), cosmic string with zero radius can bind the dipole and the dipole does not fall into the singularity.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.