Deception Point

by Dan Brown

the men and women of NASA are history’s modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then go back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.”

NASA—NOT ALWAYS SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE.

NASA makes astonishing breakthroughs for one reason only—our employees want to understand the cosmos more deeply. They are a community of dreamers who grew up staring at starry skies and asking themselves what was up there. Passion and curiosity are what drive NASA’s innovation,

‘plagioclase stress inclusions’—tiny bubbles of metal

ultradeep oceanic environment where extreme pressure metamorphosed a pre-existing rock, permitting some of the disparate metals to fuse.”

Mariana Trench can make rocks with chondrulelike features?”

‘Combined hydrostatic and tectonic pressures could potentially force crust into an elastic or semi-liquid state, allowing lighter elements to fuse into chondrulelike structures thought to occur only in space.’

ultradepleted zirconium.” She looked up. “Only two parts per million.” “Two ppm?” Corky blurted. “Meteorites have thousands of times that!”