The Meteorite Apprentice

It can be easy to forget that meteoritics is still a rather cutting-edge area of study. Many well-established theories in meteoritics and planetary science, such as planetary differentiation, often have components that have never been verified through direct observation. It’s noteworthy then when new research upends long held assumptions that were largely supported by the absence of direct sampling. In this case the assumption was that differentiation only occurred on the non-carbonaceous bodies.   A paper from Aléon, et al, 2020 titled, Alkali magmatism on a carbonaceous chondrite planetesimal, challenges this assumption and sheds new light on the wholesale dynamics...

      *First Published in the May, 2016 edition of Meteorite Times Magazine   In a rare event in the field of meteoritics, researchers at UCLA quietly announced the discovery of a new kind of ordinary chondrite in an abstract submitted to the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. This two page abstract is a precursor to a much more in depth paper soon to be published with a working title of, ‘A new kind of chondrite: Matrix­ rich clast in the NWA 10214 LL3­ chondrite breccia’, authored by Alan Rubin et al, which explains that in addition to...

Al Haggounia 001 | Not an Aubrite The Aubrite class of achondrite meteorites, comprised mostly of the mineral Enstatite share a close kinship with the class of meteorites named after the same mineral, the ¨Enstatite¨ or ¨E¨ Chondrite. While they’re both comprised of the same mineral, they don’t appear to originate from the same parent bodies. It is thought however that the Aubrites, tending to be highly reduced igneous breccias of enstatite and plagioclase, could likely be mimicked by a sufficiently altered enstatite chondrite. Such was the case for Al Haggounia 001. When the meteorite was first analysed with a limited...

  Have you ever wondered how old our solar system is? How did the Sun and the planets form? Where did the material to create them come from? These are some pretty heady questions, but anyone with an inquisitive mind can ask them. When a meteorite falls to the Earth, and they do everyday, it’s like a care package for researchers from the Solar System, loaded with all kinds of scientific clues about what’s out there. No need to defy gravity, spend billions of dollars, and risk the vacuum of space. Let gravity do the work for you!   A meteorite...

Originally published in Spring 2014 Issue of Meteorite Magazine