Imagine: you are in a dark, black, space. You see stars in the distance, and you can’t hear anything. You can’t see any light other than the shiny surfaces of planets and the stars that might have planets that support life, just like your beautiful planet Earth does. What you are imagining is space, where we can also find meteors.
Meteors are “space rocks” floating around in our solar system. When a meteor infiltrates Earth’s atmosphere, it is called a meteorite. Scientists have discovered that lots of meteorites are made from three “parent” meteors that collided together. NASA scientists report, “When meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere, or that of another planet, at high speed and burn up, they’re called meteors. This is also when we refer to them as ‘shooting stars.’ Sometimes meteors can even appear brighter than Venus – that’s when we call them ‘fireballs.’ Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on Earth each day.” (NASA)
Until recently, only 6% of meteorites had known origins. Now, according to a new study, 70% of the 70,000 meteorites have known origins. One study was published in the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics whilst another two were published in the Journal of Nature. The 70% of meteorites came from three other meteors crashing together 5.8, 7.5 and 40 million years ago.
The three asteroid groups are named Karin, Koronis and Massalia. These groups are fragments of asteroids 30 kilometers across!
Some families of meteorites have more fragments as they are less ancient, therefore have less gravity. Therefore, they can be flung into space. Most meteorites are chondrites and have chondrules. In simpler words, this means that most meteorites have chondrules, which are tiny grains of olivine and pyroxene which are minerals. These meteorites come in different classes: C chondrites, H chondrites and L chondrites. C chondrites origins were known before and H and L chondrites were the chondrites that had murky origins that recently got discovered.
To find out more about meteors and meteorites, you can go to Meteors and Meteorites: Facts – NASA Science.