Science: Detecting Tektites

Scattered thinly over the earth's surface are large patches of tektites—glassy lumps up to several inches across, of mysterious and probably unearthly origin. In Britain's Nature, American Chemist Truman P. Kohman, writing from West Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, argues that tektites must come from outside the solar system.

The tektites in each of the patches, which are hundreds or thousands of miles across, are different, and none of them have any relation to the earthly rocks near them. One popular theory holds that they are chips knocked off the moon by meteor impacts. Another argues that they are nonmetallic meteorites...

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