Mysterious form of meteorite found in Swedish quarry, 470 million years ago, somewhere between Jupiter and Mars, two gigantic asteroids collided
Over 500 million years ago, a small asteroid crashed into a larger one,
about 100 km to 150 km, between Jupiter and Mars .Source: BIRGER SHMITZ
A meteorite recently discovered has been dated nearly 470 million
years old and is considered to be the first of its kind ever found.
Scientists
have named the meteorite Ost 65; it was found in a maritime limestone
quarry in Sweden. Experts believe that the meteorite fell during a
particularly violent space collision.
470 million years ago, somewhere between Jupiter and Mars, two gigantic
asteroids collided, the larger of which was estimated to measure between
100 and 150 kilometres long.We know this because the Earth was showered with fragments of rock,
which sliced through the atmosphere and fell to the planet’s surface as
meteorites. Most of these fragments, called L chondrites, have a very
similar chemical composition which suggests they they came from the same
asteroids. L chondrites are the second most common type of meteorite on
the planetOst 65, however, is different. Despite being found alongside more than
100 L chondrite type meteorites, it is not one of them – it has a unique
chemical composition.
Ost 65 contained higher concentrations of rare isotopes of neon
compared to the proportions of chondrites, as well as very high
concentrations of iridium compared to the composition of Earth’s
materials.
These higher levels of iridium are very rare on Earth.
Scientists believe that the L chondrite meteors all came from the one of
the asteroids involved in that collision almost 500 million years ago,
whilst Ost 65 was a fragment of the other. Öst 065 fossil meteorite.Source:BIRGER SHMITZBy
using what is called cosmic-ray exposure, the team of experts found
that the rock’s age was within one million years of the L chondrite
collision. Although this doesn’t seem important, it does mean that their
theory was correct; that an asteroid was responsible for the breakup.
Birger
Schmitz of Lund university told reporters that the cosmic-ray exposure
age of the meteorite shows that it could be a fragment of the impact
that had broken up the L “chondrite parent body.”
He added that
this could be the first-ever documented piece of an extinct meteorite.
How does that work? It is because that type of meteorite doesn’t fall on
Earth today because of the parent body being consumed by the
collisions.
Schmitz explained that this meteorite fell to earth
470 million years ago. Because this is the first, and only, meteorite of
its kind, scientists are still not sure what was once out there in
space millions of years ago. They are only able to tell what is out
there today because of newer fragments found.
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