Meteorites: Messengers from the Early Solar System

Abstract

Meteorites are fragments from solar system bodies, dominantly asteroids. A small fraction is derived from the Moon and from Mars. These rocks tell a rich history of the early solar system and range from solids little changed since the earliest phases of solid matter condensation in the solar nebula (chondrites) to material representing asteroidal metamorphism and melting, impact processes on the Moon and even aqueous alteration near the surface of Mars. Meteorites are very rare. Currently many meteorites result from searches in Antarctica and the hot deserts of North Africa and Arabia. The present high find rate likely represents a unique short-term event, asking for a careful management of this scarce scientific resource.

Combining Micro-Raman Spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy Mapping: A Stony Meteorite Study

“…A characteristic near round morphology of the chondrule, with a diameter of about 820 µm, with many phenocrystals of different shapes and dimensions, resulted in the OM image acquired in transmitted plane-polarised light (see Figure 2a). By transmitted cross-polarised light image (see Figure 2b), the typical intense interference colours of olivine and orthopyroxene phases [24] have been observed for the crystals, as expected for chondrules mineral composition [5,25]. On the other hand, the matrix surrounding the single phenocrystals and the chondrule appeared black, or rather opaque and/or without any optical birefringence activity.…”

“…While in Martian meteorites anhydrite is not an extremely rare phase [36][37][38], in chondrite it is not reported as a typical mineral [5]. In the literature [7,25,39], the discussion about the presence of sulphur-reach phases in chondrite, such as troilite and oldhamite, has been reported.…”

“…These fascinating and rare materials play a fundamental role in the study of planetary and cosmological issues. Indeed, they represent a unique opportunity to study the elements and the materials constituting the proto-Solar System, including the Earth precursor [3][4][5].…”

Mineralogy of the RBT 04262 Martian meteorite as determined by micro‐Raman and micro‐X‐ray fluorescence spectroscopies

“…Thus, the impact on Mars or the impact of arrival to Earth caused a shock wave that converted the plagioclase feldspar into maskelynite or into a weakly shocked plagioclase [CaAl 2 Si 2 O 8 NaAlSi 3 O 8 ], as reported in literature. [ 23 ]…”

Terrestrial ages of seven meteorite strewn fields and two single unpaired meteorites from the Sultanate of Oman determined using 14C and 10Be

“…The Omani-Swiss meteorite search (OSMS) program started in 2001 (Al-Kathiri et al, 2005;Gnos et al, 2009;Hofmann, 2010;Hofmann et al, 2003Hofmann et al, , 2011Hofmann et al, , 2014. Since then, yearly search campaigns (19 in total until 2020) resulted in a large collection of meteorites, all well documented in terms of find locations, pairing corrections, and classification.…”