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Rocky was napping in a doghouse in Costa Rica on April 23 when a small meteorite punctured the roof. The dog was unharmed, but could not hope to be matched by feying the stray meteorite.
That's because Rocky's space rock was just one piece of a clay-rich meteorite that crashed to earth over the town of Aguas Zarcas in Costa Rica. Clay-rich meteorites are scientifically fascinating, preserving water-rich minerals from beyond Earth. But they're also fragile: Rain can cause this type of meteorite to fall apart. Hence scientists' enthusiasm over Rocky's sample and other fragments of the meteorite, which they estimate was about the size of the Earth's atmosphere.
"Laurence Garvie, curator at the Arizona State University's Center for Meteorite Studies," was formed in an environment free of life, then was saved in 4.56 billion years, and then dropped in Costa Rica last week. said in a statement. "Nature has said 'here you are,' and now we're going to be smart enough to tease apart the individual components and understand what they are telling us."
Related: Photo Gallery: Images of Martian Meteorites
Meteorite collector Michael Farmer seen in front of Rocky 's doghouse, Rocky and a second dog.
(Image: © Michael Farmer)
One fragment of the Aguas Zarcas meteorite fell through the roof of Rocky's doghouse.
(Image: © Michael Farmer)
A fragment of the Aguas Zarcas meteorite that fell over Costa Rica on April 23, 2019.
(Image: © ASU)
A slice of the Aguas Zarcas meteorite shows different minerals in different colors; for example, tochilinite in yellow and olivine in dark blue.
(Image: © ASU)
Samples from the clay-rich Aguas Zarcas meteorite that fell over Costa Rica last month.
(Image: © ASU)
Garvie and his colleagues are just working, analyzing fragments collected from the Aguas Zarcas meteorite fell last month. (Those days were all dry, meteorites.) In addition to analyzing them, the team also needs to protect them.
"If you leave this carbonaceous chondrite in the air, it would lose some of its extraterrestrial affinities," Garvie said. "These meteorites have to be curated in a way that they can be used for current and future research."
Because the Aguas Zarcas meteorite was a carbonaceous chondriteIt was mostly clay, prompting Garvie to describe it as a mud ball. The high clay content means that scientists can use these meteorites to get a better understanding of how to get into the water.
But the meteorites are also scientifically interesting, since they should contain earliest days of the solar systemwhen all this cosmic rubble first formed.
"Carbonaceous chondrites are relatively rare among meteorites but they are some of the most sought-after by researchers because they contain the best-preserved clues to the origin of the solar system," Meenakshi Wadhwa, who leads the meteorite center, said in the same statement .
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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