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Scientists have confirmed that an asteroid that exploded over Germany on January 21 is a rare type of space rock that can help shed light on the origins of Earth. The fragments of asteroid 2024 BX1 were discovered just five days later and were analyzed by a group of scientists, who concluded that it belongs to a rare group called aubrites.
Peter Jenniskens, who was part of the team that recovered the fragments, was quoted by Space.com as saying that only 11 examples of aubrite meteorites had been known to fall on Earth in the past. This rare family is believed to represent only 1 percent of known meteorites.
What makes aubrite meteorites different?
Aubrite meteorites stand out for their unique characteristics. Unlike typical meteorites, they possess a translucent glass crust rather than a thick black one, and exhibit a gray granite appearance, which initially causes difficulty in distinguishing them from ordinary terrestrial rocks.
“The interesting thing about this fall is that we have a very nice orbit, so the shape of the orbit itself contains clues about where the source region of these meteorites was,” Jenniskens said.
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“They probably came from the inner side of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. That’s a place where there’s probably a lot of debris, a collision that created many smaller pieces called the asteroid family,” he added.
Why is it significant?
Jenniskens and his colleagues at the Berlin Nature Museum performed the first analyzes of one of these meteorite fragments using an electron beam microprobe. Their findings revealed that these meteorites share the typical mineralogy and chemical composition of aubrite-type rocks.
Originating from main belt asteroids such as 2024 BX1, these meteorites date back approximately 4.5 billion years, coinciding with the formation of the planets in the solar system. They were formed from the material that surrounded the young sun and that was left after the planet formation process.
Due to their lack of alteration by geological processes, aubrite meteorites provide scientists with valuable information about the primordial materials that shaped the inner rocky planets of the solar system, including Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth.
Jenniskens also noted that aubrites, like these meteorites, exhibit remarkably Earth-like properties, such as water content and chemical proportions. This similarity offers researchers a unique opportunity to study the materials involved in the formation of our planet billions of years ago.
(With contributions from agencies)