A team of researchers affiliated with institutions in Australia, the U.S. and France has found evidence of relatively recent water movement in meteorites that only recently collided with the Earth. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their study of carbonaceous chondrite (CC) meteorites that landed on the surface of the Earth within the past century and…
Tag: chondrite
Researchers uncover key clues about the solar system’s history
In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, researchers at the University of Rochester were able to use magnetism to determine, for the first time, when carbonaceous chondrite asteroids—asteroids that are rich in water and amino acids—first arrived in the inner solar system. The research provides data that helps inform scientists about the early origins of…
Meteorite Study Suggests Earth May Have Been Wet Since It Formed
nickwinlund77 shares a report from Phys.Org: A new study finds that Earth’s water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed — instead of far-reaching comets or asteroids delivering such water. The findings published Aug. 28 in Science suggest that Earth may have always been wet. Researchers from the Centre…
An Unusual Meteorite, More Valuable Than Gold, May Hold Life’s Building Blocks
Slashdot reader sciencehabit tells the strange story of a 4.5-billion-year-old meteor from “the cold void beyond Jupiter” that sent “blazing fireballs and rocks raining down on farms and fields.” On 23 April 2019, a space rock the size of a washing machine broke up in the skies over Aguas Zarcas, a village carved out of Costa Rica’s rainforest. The falling fragments,…
Did an asteroid collision cause an ice age on Earth?
Could a collision between 2 asteroids millions of miles away cause an ice age on Earth, some 460 million years ago? A new study of earthly rocks and sediments – plus micrometeorites that fell in Antarctica – suggest it’s possible. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/did-an-asteroid-collision-cause-an-ice-age-on-earth…
What asteroid Ryugu told us
The Hayabusa2 mission has confirmed that – if asteroid Ryugu or a similar asteroid were to come dangerously close to Earth – we’d need to take care in trying to divert it, lest it break up into fragments that might then impact Earth. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-ryugu-potential-to-break-apart-on-impact…
Mud ball meteorites rain down in Costa Rica
“Mud ball” meteorites – full of clays, organics and water – are unique among space rocks. And a lot of them fell in April 2019 on a small town in Costa Rica, much to the delight of scientists. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mudball-meteorite-fall-aguas-zarcas-costa-rica-2019…