Meteorites Content

Aluminum Isotope in the Early Solar System

Andy Fell — September 05, 2023 - 11:02am

A little over four and a half billion years ago, dust circling our young sun was collecting into balls that would become planets. Heat from radioactive decay melted these balls of dust into blobs of molten rock, growing as they accumulated more material. A small piece of one of these molten objects broke away and traveled around the solar system for eons before falling to Earth as a meteorite in the Algerian desert. Now, very accurate dating of this meteorite is giving new insight into the formation of the Solar System.

Meteorite Hunting With Drones

Andy Fell — March 10, 2022 - 10:53am

For the first time, scientists have recovered a fallen meteorite with the help of drones and machine learning. Automation could lead to more meteorites being recovered, especially smaller fragments or pieces that fell in remote or inaccessible places. Collecting more meteorites means more data about where these space rocks come from and what they can tell us about our solar system.

Fragments of 2018 Botswana Fireball Came From Vesta

Andy Fell — April 23, 2021 - 8:30am

An asteroid that exploded over Botswana in 2018 likely came from Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt, according to an analysis of rocks recovered after the impact.

Vesta is the source of about six percent of all meteorites found on Earth. Some of these meteorites were launched by a huge impact on Vesta about a billion years ago. However, the new analysis suggests the 2018 asteroid was flung into space about 22 million years ago.

Meteorites Show Transport of Material in Early Solar System

Andy Fell — September 08, 2020 - 3:05pm

New studies of a rare type of meteorite show that material from close to the sun reached the outer solar system even as the planet Jupiter cleared a gap in the disk of dust and gas from which the planets formed. The results, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, add to an emerging understanding of how our solar system formed and how planets form around other stars.

New Type of Meteorite Linked to Ancient Asteroid Collision

Andy Fell — June 15, 2016 - 9:33am

An ancient space rock discovered in a Swedish quarry is a type of meteorite never before found on Earth and likely a remnant of a collision in the asteroid belt that sent debris raining to Earth during the Ordovician Period 470 million years ago.