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A small shard of a meteorite that arrived on Earth in 2008 appears to have come from the asteroid, according to researchers who studied the sample.
The parent asteroid appears to be about the size of Ceres, the dwarf planet is the largest object in the asteroid belt, the researchers say. It also appears to have formed around water and under some pressure, they found.
Meteors and meteorites can provide a key way to better understand our solar system, as they originate from asteroids that remained from the formation of our planet and its vicinity.
While many are left in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, others have been shattered and sent pieces into the inner solar system. One of these pieces arrived 12 years ago and was used to study the still mysterious large parent asteroid that appears to be lurking in our solar system.
The brightness of the meteorite known as Almahata Sitta, or AhS, was already remarkable. It arrived on Earth in 2008, when a 9-ton asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere and exploded into some 600 meteorites somewhere over Sudan.
It was the first time scientists could predict an asteroid impact before it actually happened. That means they were able to collect 23 pounds of samples, which have been the subject of scientific studies since then.
“We have been allocated a 50 milligram sample of AhS to study,” SwRI scientist Dr. Vicky Hamilton, first author of a paper published in Nature Astronomy, said in a statement. “We mounted and polished the tiny fragment and used an infrared microscope to examine its composition.
“Spectral analysis identified a range of hydrated minerals, in particular amphibole, which indicates intermediate temperatures and pressures and a prolonged period of aqueous weathering on a parent asteroid of at least 400 and up to 1,100 miles in diameter. “
These amphiboles are rare in meteorites like Almahata Sitta, which are known as carbonaceous chondrite and serve as a record of the early stages of the universe. As such, it could offer a new source of information about materials present in the early solar system.
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