I happen to be in Washington, DC to attend the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) convention as a member of Hawaii County's Workforce Investment Board (WIB). Since I arrived a day before the event, I dragged myself through the streets of downtown DC to see some sights. Of course, I got about as far as the National Mall, and was sucked into the National Museum of Natural

History meteorite hall (a fate from which I would not emerge until several hours later). Equally as impressive was the Gem and Mineral hall, but I only spent about an hour in there. The extra-terrestrial specimen of stone, iron and stony iron meteorites were of extraordinary quality and size. Many were of extremely rare type, and when you see 100+g specimen of Mighei, Ivuna, Murchison, it just knocked my socks off. After getting back to my hotel later that night, I discovered that many of my closeups were blurry or underexposed (its so very difficult to photograph meteorites even under controlled conditions, much less within a museum exhibition behind several layers of glass and lucite). So I'm going back on Saturday morning to reshoot those before my afternoon session at the NAWB conference.

Exterior of the National Museum of Natural History

There was a pretty good crowd on the day I visited the museum

It was for the meteorite collection that I made a point to visit the museum - and what a collection!

I tried to capture the Estherville, but had to settle for this Pinnaroo instead

Exquisite slice of Esquel

Pallasites are the jewels of the meteorite world

Mars rocks on left, Eucrites on right

Assortment of meteorites collected from Antarctica, many from Elephant Moraine

Iron meteorites, all displaying distinct Widmanstatten patterns on their etched faces

This slice of Mundrabilla is over six feet tall!

Beautifully etched Youndegin iron meteorite with large sulfide nodules

A couple of iron meteorites with a very coarse Widmanstatten pattern.

A huge slab of Carbo, with the inset showing the specimen's Widmanstatten pattern.

A Cape York slice, with a huge sulfide nodule

Allan Hills 84001, a Martian achondrite found in Antarctica 1984.

Primitive, undifferentiated Carbonaceous Chondrites of every class, and type specimen

Nakhla is the type specimen for Martian

Intact, whole specimen of Bjurbole

Ivuna Carbonaceous Chondrite is the type specimen for CI class meteorites

Orgeil Carbonaceous Chondrite fell in France in 1854.

Lunar rock collected by Apollo 16

Shergotty became the type specimen for Martian basaltic achondrites: the Shergottites

MacAlpine Hills 88105 - Lunar achondrite

Fusion crusts on different specimen, show the effedt of plunging through atmosphere

Oriented specimen did not tumble, but fell in a stable flight to form these shields & cones

Success, a stone chondrite that fell in 1924 in Clay County, Arkansas

Peekskill is a famous fall, having been videotaped and crashing through a car trunk

Impact Melt Breccia (IMB) specimen showing darkened, glassy area from heat

Aubrites are a melted enstatite achondrite - these are from historic falls around the US

This slice of Cumberland Falls aubrite features large chondritic inclusions

Terrestrial impact breccia

Slice of a layered Tektite

Interstellar diamond dust crystals that were isolated from an Allende meteorite

It's not a meteorite, but the Hope Diamond is certainly "out of this world"