Rare Meteorite Discovered in Australia Revealed to Be 4.6 Billion Years Old

Firda Dwi Muliawati, CNBC Indonesia

Tech

Sunday, 17/12/2023 21:00 WIB

Photo: Appearance of an object suspected to be a meteorite falling in Central Lampung. (Doc: Pool/detikNews)

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Who would have thought that a unique piece of rock that was thought to be by a man in Australia actually held a rare ‘treasure’ in the world.

This is what happened to David Hole. Initially, Hole found a mysterious stone in Maryborough Regional Park, near Melbourne, Australia in 2015.

After finding the stone, he tried to dismantle the stone in various ways. Finally, Hole took it to the Melbourne Museum and it was discovered that the stone was a rare meteorite.

“The appearance is sculpted with dimples. That shape occurs when they pass through the atmosphere, they melt outside and the atmosphere sculpts them,” said Melbourne Museum geologist Dermot Henry to The Sydney Morning Herald in 2019, as reported by Science Alert, quoted on Sunday (17/12/ 2023).

Researchers in a scientific paper revealed that the meteorite, which was named Maryborough, was 4.6 billion years old. The 17 kilogram meteorite has a high percentage of iron making it an H5 ordinary chondrite.

When a meteorite is exposed, there are small droplets of crystallized metallic minerals throughout it called chondrules. It is also said that this could reveal stars forming.

“Some provide a glimpse of our planet. Some meteorites, there is ‘stardust’ that is even older than our Solar System, how stars formed and evolved to create the elements of the periodic table,” he explained.

“Other rare meteorites contain organic molecules such as amino acids; the building blocks of life.”

Unfortunately, the origin of the meteorite is not yet known. This also includes how long the stone has been on Earth.

However, the research team has a number of suspicions. One of the stones may come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

“This particular meteorite probably came out of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and was pushed out of there by several asteroids that collided with each other and then one day hit Earth,” Henry explained.

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