This can be a piece of the Dar al Gani 400 meteorite, which broke off from the Moon practically 1 million years in the past. Credit score: David J. Eicher
Hello of us, tune in each week of 2023 for the perfect in astronomy from Astronomy Editor Dave Eicher, dropped at you by Celestron. Dave’s weekly video collection will cowl all the newest sky occasions, scientific outcomes, overviews of cosmic mysteries, and extra!
This week, we’re speaking about the way to maintain a bit of one other world in your arms — by gathering meteorites. The most typical can be found for just a few tens of {dollars} for every small piece, whereas the least frequent sorts go for a number of thousand {dollars} per gram. Practically all meteorites are items of asteroids, however some fragments of the Moon and even Mars.
These objects have been knocked into space by massive impacts, and their orbits ultimately introduced them into Earth’s gravitational tug. For instance, Dar al Gani 400, the biggest lunar meteorite, fell within the Libyan Sahara in 1998. Scientists know that meteorites prefer it got here from the Moon as a result of their traits — like chemical compositions, ratios of isotopes, mineralogies, and textures — match the samples introduced again from Apollo missions.
The most important and most celebrated martian meteorite is called Zagami and fell in Nigeria in 1962. Zagami is assessed as a basaltic shergottite, which implies it’s just like Shergotty, the second martian meteorite discovered.
For extra on meteorites and the place they arrive from, you may learn this feature from our July 2019 issue. And to learn the way scientists can hint the origins of meteorites to Mars, take a look at this Ask Astro answer.
