All posts tagged: meteorite

A meteorite crashed into a New Jersey home in 2024. Inside it were life’s building blocks.

A meteorite crashed into a New Jersey home in 2024. Inside it were life’s building blocks.

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Exactly two years ago tomorrow, an unexpected visitor startled a homeowner in Hillsborough, New Jersey. When a loud crash disrupted his morning on July 16, 2024, the man rushed towards the source in his bedroom. Inside, he discovered a chaotic scene—and a large hole in the ceiling. “I smelled a strong sulfur-like odor and saw many black fragments along with debris and black dust that covered my bed, carpet and surrounding areas,” the man recalled. Thinking quickly, he documented the surreal situation and stored the rocky fragments in glass jars using aluminum foil and disposable gloves. News outlets and corroborating witnesses soon confirmed the culprit: a daytime, suitcase-sized meteor had entered Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 32,000 miles per second. Cameras in …

Rare meteorite points to a long-lost planet from our early solar system

Rare meteorite points to a long-lost planet from our early solar system

Published by Jenni Sidey

A meteorite found in the Sahara is forcing scientists to rethink what kinds of worlds once circled the young sun. The rock, called Northwest Africa 12774, belongs to a rare class of meteorites known as angrites, some of the oldest volcanic materials ever recovered. For years, their odd chemistry led many researchers to picture their source as a small asteroid. But the new evidence points somewhere much larger. It seems to be a lost protoplanet that may once have rivaled the moon and perhaps even approached Mars in size. In the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, researchers report what they describe as the first direct evidence. The angrite parent body was not a modest asteroid at all, but a planetary embryo that formed very early and later disappeared. “It’s incredible to think there was once a world this large,” said Aaron Bell, an assistant research professor in the Department of Earth Science at CU Boulder. “We only know it existed because a few fragments of it happened to land on Earth. These meteorites preserved …

Rare lunar meteorite was smacked three times before finally hitting Earth

Rare lunar meteorite was smacked three times before finally hitting Earth

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. A rare type of meteorite discovered in Mali is revealing a multibillion-year tale of lunar catastrophes. With its unique composition, astronomers are beginning to better understand the processes that shaped not only the moon and Earth, but the solar system itself. The study recently published in the journal Geology is nearly 10 years in the making and focuses on a meteorite classified as NWA 12593. Found in the west African nation in 2017, experts soon recognized the space rock as an especially unique specimen. NWA 12593 is one of only 53 known lunar breccia—a meteorite formed by the amalgamation of multiple moon fragments during separate impacts billions of years ago.  “Breccias are similar to what you would see if you went and chipped …

Lunar meteorite discovery reveals violent chapter in the inner solar system 3.5 billion years ago

Lunar meteorite discovery reveals violent chapter in the inner solar system 3.5 billion years ago

Published by Jenni Sidey

Earth’s earliest chapter is mostly gone. Rocks from the planet’s first few billion years have been eroded, buried, recycled, or dragged back into the mantle. This has left only scattered traces of the world in which life first appeared. Therefore, every surviving clue is unusually valuable, especially when scientists are trying to answer a basic question. How often did giant impacts strike the young inner solar system while life was beginning on Earth? A lunar meteorite recovered in northwest Africa is now offering one of those clues. In a study published in Geology, researchers report that the rock records a major impact on the Moon about 3.486 billion years ago. The age closely matches evidence of ancient impacts preserved on Earth. It also matches impact ages tied to 4 Vesta, the fourth-largest object in the asteroid belt. That rare overlap, the team says, helps connect the histories of three different bodies at a time when the inner solar system was still getting hammered. This happened long after the most chaotic phase of planet formation had …

Rare meteorite proves our solar system almost had an extra planet

Rare meteorite proves our solar system almost had an extra planet

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. A rare meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert proves that our solar system almost had at least one extra planet. In a study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, astronomers say the chunk of space rock known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 12774 once belonged to a protoplanet possibly as large as Mars. That is, until a cosmic crash likely blew it to smithereens.  The solar system includes eight known planets (sorry, Pluto). Barring interstellar catastrophe, this number will remain the same until the sun finally dies about 5 billion years from now. However, this total planetary count was never a guarantee.The solar system’s earliest era featured multiple embryonic protoplanets that had the potential to grow together into additional cosmic neighbors. …

Pure hexagonal diamonds are real and harder than natural diamonds

Pure hexagonal diamonds are real and harder than natural diamonds

Published by Jenni Sidey

Diamonds are famous for their strength, but scientists have long suspected that another form of diamond might be even harder. Evidence of this was gathered over the past sixty years in meteorite fragments, where the mineral lonsdaleite appeared. Lonsdaleite was theorized to have formed due to immense impact pressures on carbon-rich rocks from cosmic impacts. However, the evidence supporting this theory has generally been inconclusive due to its small size and contamination with other carbon forms. Additionally, there has been some skepticism about whether hexagonal diamond exists as an actual mineral. Recent experimental results indicate that lonsdaleite is real and can be manufactured in a pure form. Shoulong Lai and his research team from Henan Key Laboratory of Diamond Materials and Devices created lonsdaleite in the laboratory using extreme temperatures and pressures, allowing them to create a sample large enough to perform chemical and physical characterization. Atomic structure of the bulk HD recovered from 20 GPa and 1,300 °C. (CREDIT: Nature) Evidence for a New Form of Diamond The results of this research were published …

Researchers create pure hexagonal diamonds that are harder than natural diamonds

Researchers create pure hexagonal diamonds that are harder than natural diamonds

Published by Jenni Sidey

Diamonds are famous for their strength, but scientists have long suspected that another form of diamond might be even harder. Evidence of this was gathered over the past sixty years in meteorite fragments, where the mineral lonsdaleite appeared. Lonsdaleite was theorized to have formed due to immense impact pressures on carbon-rich rocks from cosmic impacts. However, the evidence supporting this theory has generally been inconclusive due to its small size and contamination with other carbon forms. Additionally, there has been some skepticism about whether hexagonal diamond exists as an actual mineral. Recent experimental results indicate that lonsdaleite is real and can be manufactured in a pure form. Shoulong Lai and his research team from Henan Key Laboratory of Diamond Materials and Devices created lonsdaleite in the laboratory using extreme temperatures and pressures, allowing them to create a sample large enough to perform chemical and physical characterization. Atomic structure of the bulk HD recovered from 20 GPa and 1,300 °C. (CREDIT: Nature) Evidence for a New Form of Diamond The results of this research were published …

Is asteroid mining actually feasible? Meteorite chemistry data offers new insight

Is asteroid mining actually feasible? Meteorite chemistry data offers new insight

Published by Jenni Sidey

Space mining often sounds like a fast route to endless metals. In practice, the first question is simple: what are small asteroids actually made of, in measurable detail? Researchers at the Institute of Space Sciences, part of the Spanish National Research Council, known as ICE-CSIC, tackled that question by studying carbon-rich meteorites that serve as stand-ins for C-type asteroids. The work was led by astrophysicist Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez of ICE-CSIC, affiliated with the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia, known as IEEC. The chemical analyses were carried out at the University of Castilla-La Mancha by Professor Jacinto Alonso-Azcárate, using mass spectrometry to map the elemental makeup of key meteorite groups. Jordi Ibáñez-Insa, a researcher at Geosciences Barcelona, known as GEO3BCN-CSIC, also contributed as a co-author. These samples come from carbonaceous chondrites, fragile meteorites linked to primitive, undifferentiated asteroids. Only a small fraction of meteorite falls belong to this carbon-rich category. Many break apart in the atmosphere and never reach collectors, which is why deserts like the Sahara and Antarctica become key hunting grounds. Bulk elemental …

The century-long hunt for the gigantic meteorite that vanished

The century-long hunt for the gigantic meteorite that vanished

Published by skeptic

It all started with an overheard conversation between some camel herders. The year was 1916, and Gaston Ripert, a French army captain, had been injured and sent to recover in the small town of Chinguetti in Mauritania. It was a lonely, dusty place on the edge of the Sahara. So when Ripert heard local people talk of a colossal block of iron out in the undulating expanse of dunes, he was intrigued. They referred to it as the “iron of God”. He persuaded one man to guide him to this fabled iron and what followed has passed into legend. After an arduous overnight camel ride, Ripert arrived at what appeared to be an enormous metal edifice – some 100 metres wide in his estimation – partly buried in the dunes, its side polished by the sand to a mirror finish. Ripert brought back a piece of rock from the site, and when it was analysed after the war, it was found to be genuine meteorite. That caused a sensation and prompted meteoriticists the world over …