This is planetary radio. The Planetary Society goes to Washington.

Hello everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan.

We'll talk with Lou Friedman about last week's hearings on the future of spaceflight held by the House Science Committee.

We'll also hear some of the testimony provided.

Bruce Betts has a special guest on What's Up and Emily is provided. Hi, I'm Emily Lochuwala with questions and answers. A listener asked, a few dozen Moon and Mars meteorites have been found on Earth.

Have any meteorites been found from Venus, Mercury, or any moons other than our own?

There are currently no known meteorites from Venus, Mercury, or moons of other planets.

Most of the meteorites that have been found on Earth are presumed to have their origin in the asteroid belt.

Most meteorites are stony bodies known as chondrites.

Condrites represent some of the most primitive bodies in the solar system.

Their parent asteroids condensed from the solar nebula about 4.6 billion years ago

and have been orbiting the sun ever since. But the most interesting type of meteorites to

planetary scientists is a type called acondrites.

Acondrites are stony, like chondrites, but they are not so primitive.

They are evolved rocks that came from large rocky bodies that had at least a brief volcanic history, large asteroids, moons, or planets.

Of these Aacondrites, 29 or about a tenth of a percent of all meteorite finds look like

the lunar rocks returned by the Apollo astronauts.

About the same number, 28, contain gas bubbles similar to the atmosphere

sampled on Mars by the Viking Landers.

What other bodies have acondrites come from?

Stay tuned to planetary radio to find out.

Dr. West Huntress is president of the Planetary Society and a former associate administrator of

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