Word: kyte
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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UCLA geochemist Frank Kyte thinks he may have found not just the answer but also a piece of the thing itself: a tiny meteorite fragment, a tenth of an inch across, that was extracted from a 65-million-year-old geological layer under more than 50 yds. of sediment at the bottom of the Northern Pacific. In a report in the current issue of Nature, Kyte notes that the little chunk contains concentrations of metals (such as iridium and nickel) and mineral textures that clearly show that it is extraterrestrial and that it probably was once part of a much...
...fact that the meteorite exists at all, says Kyte, also strongly suggests that it came from an asteroid, not from a comet, as many scientists still believe. He notes that comets strike the earth at such high speeds--many of them well over 100,000 m.p.h.--that they are usually completely melted and vaporized. But a typical asteroid hits at less than half that speed, and some fragments often survive. So why did this one turn up 5,400 miles away from the Yucatan impact site? Kyte believes it was flung by the explosion high above the atmosphere...
...town of Northfield, the threat of secession by a charter group led the district to create a Spanish- language immersion program for first- and second-graders, introduce multiage classrooms and enrich the math program for middle-schoolers. "The charter made it easier to change things," admits Northfield superintendent Charles Kyte. "If we weren't progressive enough and didn't change, then somebody else would come along...