NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Searching the Desert

A student from the University of Khartoum, Sudan searches the desert terrain for meteorites. "The desert is big and finding a meteorite is like searching for a needle in a haystack," said Peter Jenniskens, meteor astronomer, at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the SETI Institute Mountain View, Calif. "It was only because so many students and staff of the University of Khartoum participated in the search that it was possible to recover the fragments of asteroid 2008 TC3," he added.

Photo Credit: NASA Ames Research Center / SETI / Peter Jenniskens