Tellus Museum's Cartersville meteorite receives Smithsonian recognition

ATLANTA -- A four billion year-old meteorite which plunged into a house in metro Atlanta was officially recognized and named by the Smithsonian Institution with the assistance of the Meteoritical Society during a ceremony on Wednesday at the Tellus Science Museum.

The 295 gram meteorite was officially named Cartersville in honor of the city in which it landed, and the location of the museum it has called home for six years. It was classified as ordinary Chondrite L5 meteorite, according to Smithsonian officials, having low iron ore and a high shock level 5.

In addition to receiving an official name, Tellus received special news related to the meteorite after submitting all of their data to the Meteoritical Society. The news came as surprise to staff and volunteers at the science museum.

"The breaking news today is that we have radar confirmation that we have a confirmed fall," Tellus Curator Sarah Timm said on Wednesday during a formal announcement. "There are alot of meteorites that are found, but no one knows when they fell. So the fact that we can pinpoint the day and time that it fell is pretty incredible."

"This is super exciting because up until now we just had a proposed date, but by submitting all of our data they were able to look at the radar data from that day and they found radar proof, Timm added. NASA radar sites in Georgia and Alabama recorded the meteorite's signature during its descent.

Tellus Museum adds historic space artifacts, new exhibits in 2014

ATLANTA -- Science exhibits from space and a clearer view into the celestial heavens were only a few of the top events occurring at the Tellus Science Museum near Atlanta during a fast-paced 2014.

The fourteenth year of the 21st century opened at Tellus with the introduction of the largest Moon rock to go on public display in Georgia. Cut from a larger rock collected during NASA fourth manned lunar landing, the four-ounce piece of the "Great Scott" rock drew large crowds to the museum's expanding space flight exhibit. NASA listed "Great Scott" as the second largest moon rock ever recovered during the six lunar landings.

"Tellus is proud to display a lunar sample retrieved during Apollo 15," Tellus Museum's curator Julian Gray said in January. "The sample is the largest on display in Georgia and is the centerpiece of the new Apollo exhibit."

Tellus also received for display from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum a real lunar module engine which was test fired by the space agency in Mississippi in 1972. The lunar module was used to taxi two astronauts to the Moon's surface and back from the command ship soaring in lunar orbit.

The science museum received a new eye on the sky in February as the planetarium's forty-foot wide dome upgraded to the Media Globe III HD projector. The new Konica Minolta-built projector provides a stunning view of our galaxy on the museum's dome at nearly 1.9 million dome pixels -- an increase of one million pixels over the previous system.

"We are very excited about our new planetarium projector – the graphics and image quality is going to blow everyone away!", Tellus Museum's Executive Director Jose Santamaria said. The new projector has allowed Tellus to conduct daily in depth astronomy presentations and showcase movie shorts which simulate a space flight.