Sixth-graders intrigued by meteor's tale
Published 7:00 pm, Friday, December 7, 2007
The meteor, known as "Weston," was the first known rock from outer space documented to fall in the New World.
Sarah Noble Intermediate School student Michael Cramer found that news "fascinating."
The school's sixth-graders heard a lecture on the meteor Friday from amateur astronomer Monty Robson, a retired airline pilot who is founder and president of the John J. McCarthy Observatory behind New Milford High School.
Robson is a world-renowned expert on the Weston meteor. He has done extensive research on its origins and the documentation of its landing 200 years ago. He even is the proud owner of a few pieces of the rock, which has a very different composition from Earth rocks, including nickel deposits.
The students had a quick laugh when Robson compared the value of Weston against gold, based on their selling price. With gold costing $754 an ounce and .68 grams of Weston costing $250, Robson said, "Weston is worth 15 times its weight in gold."
And Weston is rarer than gold -- its birth goes back some 30 million years, he said. Chunks of it are housed in museums as far away as Vienna and as close as the Peabody Museum in New Haven.
Robson said most people who saw the holes the 1- to 2-meter Weston left when it fell had no idea what to think. In his research he found the story of one family's cows that were so terrified when the rock landed near them they raced to another pasture. Four hours later they were still shaking.
When President Thomas Jefferson was told about the stone that fell from the sky, he reportedly suggested it was some kind of lie perpetuated by "Yankee professors." But Robson disputes that Jefferson would have doubted news of the meteor because of his knowledge of science.
Asked by students about other meteor sightings and landings on Earth, Robson said every day tiny objects fall from space, but only every 25 to 50 years does a meterorite prove noteworthy.
The intrigue that prompted his extensive study of Weston stems solely from the fact that it happened nearby, he said. He offers his presentations because he hopes to pique student curiosity about science, particularly astronomy.
"I thought this was really cool," said student Jessica Hogenauer.