The mystery behind a diamond-tipped meteorite exploding over Sudan in 2008 is partly revealed by researchers at the Southwest Research Institute based in Texas, USA. The study suggests that the meteorite was part of a giant asteroid in our solar system, which was the same size as the dark planet Ceres. The latter is the largest celestial object in the asteroid belt.
When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) first saw the swing before it hit, according to the calculations, it was 13 feet in diameter and weighed 8,200 kg. A 50-gram sample examined by a team under an infrared microscope has found that the meteorite had a unique mineral shape, including an ‘amphibole’ that requires prolonged exposure to water to development.
The miner only appeared once on a meteorite called Allende that collapsed in Chihuahua, Mexico fifty years ago.
“Some of these mineral-controlled meteorites provide evidence for exposure to water at low temperatures and pressures,” said study co-author Vicky Hamilton, a planetary geologist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in the statement. “The combination of other meteorites indicates warming without water. ”
The meteorite belongs to the region of 4.6 percent of meteorites found and studied on Earth. These black rocks are called Almahata Sitta (AhS) and are made of a material called carbonaceous chondrite. Organic rock also contains organic fertilizers along with a mixture of minerals and water.
The scientists are also building their hopes on samples collected by Japan’s Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from the Ryugu and Bennu asteroids. The OSIRIS-REx is expected to return to Earth in 2023 but Hayabusa2 has already returned.
“If the samples of Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx differ from what we have in the meteorites collections, it could mean that their physical properties cause them to not survive. processes of ejection, movement and entry through the Earth’s atmosphere, at least in their original geological context, ”said Hamilton, who also serves on the OSIRIS-REx science team. “However, we believe that there are more carbonaceous chondrite materials in the Solar System than are represented by the meteorites’ accumulations.”
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