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Event #2


For my second event of the quarter, I visited UCLA’s Meteorite Galley located in the Geology building. I had never visited the gallery before, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much information it had to offer. The first thing that caught my eye when I entered the gallery was a 357 pound iron meteorite pictured here:


While I was initially impressed by the size of this meteorite, which was found in Arizona, I soon began to ponder about the complexity behind how it was created. Luckily, information on how these meteorites are formed and classified is provided in the gallery, as seen here:

I soon found out that extraterrestrial rocks come in immense sizes, for example, Itokawa: a 535x294x209 meter asteroid. In addition, in 2011, NASA's dawn spacecraft arrived at Vesta: the second largest asteroid with an average diameter of approximately 525 kilometers. 

What really intrigued me while visiting the gallery was the wide variety of extraterrestrial rocks on display. I think that before visiting the gallery, I thought of rocks as simple as well as similar. However, after my visit, I came to realize that there is tremendous complexity in the formation of rocks and that they vary greatly in shape, size, as well as color.


Overall, I found the gallery extremely fascinating and would definitely recommend making a visit. Not only does it provide extensive information on various extraterrestrial rocks, but it can also serve as an eye opening experience.

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