5 ms·

4.6B-year-old meteorite found

97 points by lambersley 5y ago

verytrivial 5y ago
Off-central-topic, but regarding where this was found, if you find yourself discussing this offline, "Loughborough" is pronounced "LUFF-burro" or "LUFF-burrah". Ref. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4 for entertaining additions.
Yajirobe 5y ago
How was it dated?
saltedonion 5y ago
Do we really expect these rocks to not undergo any sort of chemical reaction once they land on earth?
- verytrivial 5y ago
  Depending on how heavy and dense, the crust can indeed melt but above a certain side the middle does not always get that hot, esp. if not very heat-conductive. This one looks rather porous and light, so likely slowed down very quickly. That's my understanding anyway.
dheera 5y ago
What exactly does 4.6B-year-old mean? Landed on the Earth 4.6B years ago? That doesn't sound right, the Earth isn't that old. Flew off its former body 4.6B years ago? How do we measure that? Created 4.6B years ago? How does one define created, considering everything was ultimately created during the big bang?
- ardit33 5y ago
  Created by clumped dust 4.6b years ago when the solar system was being formed.... but it hasn't been part of a larger body, so it is not that compressed, so it is not a chunk of another larger body that split off from collisions. It contains organic material, which means the dust that formed our solar system, contained plenty of it. If it arrived yesterday in earth, it still is 4.6b old. "Identifying organic compounds would support the idea that early meteorites carried amino acids – the building blocks of life – to supply the Earth’s primordial soup where life first began. “Carbonaceous chondrites contain organic compounds including amino acids, which are found in all living things,” said Director of Astrochemistry at EAARO Derek Robson who found the meteorite and who will soon join Loughborough University as an academic visitor for collaborative research. “Being able to identify and confirm the presence of such compounds from a material that existed before the Earth was born would be an important step towards understanding how life began.”"
  - ars 5y ago
    > but it hasn't been part of a larger body, so it is not that compressed, so it is not a chunk of another larger body that split off from collisions. It's way too small to clump from its own gravity, it pretty much has to be a portion of something MUCH larger.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      That assertion gets into questions of asteroid formation, which I find fascinating, though there's very little information I've been able to find. Keep in mind that "gravitational accretion" simply kicks the can a bit further: the chunks that accrete gravitationally must themselves form and congeal somehow. What I understand of solar system formation is that all "metallic" solar systems (though with a substantial portion of elements other than hydrogen) from from the remains of earlier stars. So you have a nova, supernova, stellar collapse, collision (stars, white dwarves, neutron stars, ...). This ejects heavy materials (principally H, He, C, O, N, though others --- water is probably the most common non-elemental molecule in the Universe), and also creates pressure waves and imparts angular momentum. Both factors can draw material together. There's also probably a lot of plasma in the mix, so that different portions of the cloud carry different charges. These may be attracted, repelled, and spark discharges (which might themselves melt and fuse material). There may also be surface-tension effects and other factors at play. Somehow, clumps form. Gravity is a force at work, but not the only force. Disclaimer: not an astronomer, just interested in far too many divers subjects. If anyone has anything authoritative to say on this I'm all ears. Most references I can find are either extremely basic, or address the formation of asteroid belts but not the objects within them. There's some hypothesis on formation (condensation, shock waves, jet flows) here: http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept02/isotopicAges.html http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept02/isotopicAges.html
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  It's the time since the rock itself fused from molten or other non-fixed form. The age of formation of rock is typically determined unequivocably by radiometric dating. That "clock" uses the ratios of long-lived radioactive elements and their decay products (this is not radio carbon dating, which is similar but effective over a much shorter timespan of about 50,000 years). The radiometric clock starts when the materials in the sample solidify and initial proportions of mother and daughter elements are fixed, "neither the parent nuclide nor the daughter product can enter or leave the material after its formation" (Wikipedia). That point in time is the "age" of the rock. The specific decay chains used in geology are uranium–lead, samarium–neodymium, potassium–argon, rubidium–strontium, and uranium–thorium. These may rely on crystaline structures which cannot form when the daughter elements (decay products) are present, therefor the amount of daughter element present gives the age. (I know this is the case for some methods, I'm unsure it applies to all. The "this structure cannot form when the daughter products are present" feature is a compelling argument for age.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating Newly-formed lava or other molten materials are "new" --- they've just been created as rock. The elements within them are older --- those date to whatever radiological apocalypse formed them (stellar fusion for elements up to iron, various novae and collisions between white dwarves and neutron stars for elements heavier than iron). And of course the protons and neutrons comprising them ... mostly ... date to the origin of the Universe in the Big Bang (there is some spontaneous creation of particles due to quantum energy and mass-energy fluctuations, though that's minimal). The atomic transmutation of elements gives some interesting results. Virtually all of the helium in the Universe formed in stars from fusion of hydrogen. A very small percentage was formed in the Big Bang. But virtually all helium on Earth is the result of radioactive decay of heavy elements, forming beta particles (two protons and two neutrons), that is, a helium nucleus. When that picks up electrons, it becomes helium. It's generally trapped with natural gas and produced as a by-product of gas wells.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  I mean, probably in the same way as one would define, say, a person's age and the time of "creation". (Individual atoms are, of course, much older than any the object that is built from them, but that does not matter.)
yongjik 5y ago
Not 100% sure but it seems clickbait - the title sounds like the meteorite was sitting on Earth for 4.6B years, but after reading the article, it sounds like the rock was 4.6B years old - it likely fell to the Earth much more recently. In that case, it's not exactly remarkable - I think pretty much all the asteroids in the Solar System are 4.6B years old, because that's when they were all created.
- vardump 5y ago
  I'm no geologist, but I'd guess nothing can survive anywhere near 4.6B years on this planet with weather systems.
  - Spare_account 5y ago
    Rocks formed on earth have been dated as old as 4 billion years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_dated_rocks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_dated_rocks It is unusual, though, you're right.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Is it unusual because of weather systems or because of plate tectonics (rocks get pushed into the mantle and melted down and new ones emerge later)?
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        Both, though plate tectonics are the ultimate limit. There's extraordinarily little primaeval crust extant on Earth. The Canadian Shield / Laurentine Plain is one of the largest, and is dated to 3.96 billion years, though the oldest is in Australia (Jack Hills region), with dates to 4.39 billion years via zircon crystals. (I believe that may geologically related to a region in southern Africa, with which it was originally joined, though cannot find a reference.) The ocean floor is virtually completely newer material, little of it over a 200 million years old (about 5% of Earth's total age), due to subduction. Continental crust is lighter, floats on top of the heavier oceanic crust, and has at least a chance of survival. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-old-is-the-ocean-floor-3960755 https://www.thoughtco.com/how-old-is-the-ocean-floor-3960755 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills https://www.geologyin.com/2015/11/44-billion-year-old-zircon-is-oldest.html https://www.geologyin.com/2015/11/44-billion-year-old-zircon... https://www.geologyin.com/2016/03/the-oldest-mountain-on-earth.html?m=1 https://www.geologyin.com/2016/03/the-oldest-mountain-on-ear...
mint2 5y ago
I really wanted to know how they managed to find it, but aside from some offhand comments they didn’t go there. Found in imprint of a horseshoe? What? Tracking it before it landed? Like in desert areas people will metal detect for meteors, but how did they find this one.
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  It helps to have friends' assistance, but you can do it alone. https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/how-to-find-meteorites/ https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/how-to-find-meteor...
- chejazi 5y ago
  I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe there is a path travelled by horseback often, and that's just where it was found
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
j_walter 5y ago
God put it there...
MeteorMarc 5y ago
This link describes the find of the meteorite. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/march/uk-fireball-meteorite-has-been-recovered-driveway-gloucestershire.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/march/uk-fireball-m...
pkdpic_y9k 5y ago
So do amino acids self-replicate on their own in some way independent of DNA / protective membranes etc? A little beyond my 8th-grade understanding of science but trying to get there...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
markus_zhang 5y ago
Was watching X-Files and wondering if Mulder ia going to Scotland yard to meet his girl friend!
yesenadam 5y ago
I just watched Werner Herzog's latest documentary (with vulcanologist Clive Oppenheimer) Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds[0] (2020) about asteroids, meteorites, comets etc and their impact on the Earth and human cultures past, present and possible future. Most of it consist of interviews with experts in the subject from around the world, showing them at work, e.g. with the Hawaiians that look out for asteroids on a collision path with Earth, and found ʻOumuamua. They go to the site of the Yucatan meteorite that killed the dinosaurs, go hunting meteorites in Antarctica etc. Maybe the most amazing bit was a sequence of photographs of micro-meteorites found in Norway. I thought it was great, highly recommended! New to Herzog? Most of the user reviews on IMDb are complaining it's not the usual impersonal science program they'd evidently expected, so please don't make that mistake. There are a few segments about meteorites in myths/religions. Herzog's documentaries all kind of feel like anthropology, no matter the topic. He's fascinated in people, and celebrates us in all our weirdness. e.g. His 2016 documentary about the internet, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World[1], was one of the best things on the subject I'd seen. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9203832 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9203832 [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5275828 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5275828

97 points by lambersley 5y ago

Off-central-topic, but regarding where this was found, if you find yourself discussing this offline, "Loughborough" is pronounced "LUFF-burro" or "LUFF-burrah". Ref. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYNzqgU7na4 for entertaining additions.

Yajirobe 5y ago

How was it dated?

saltedonion 5y ago

Do we really expect these rocks to not undergo any sort of chemical reaction once they land on earth?

verytrivial 5y ago
Depending on how heavy and dense, the crust can indeed melt but above a certain side the middle does not always get that hot, esp. if not very heat-conductive. This one looks rather porous and light, so likely slowed down very quickly. That's my understanding anyway.

dheera 5y ago

What exactly does 4.6B-year-old mean? Landed on the Earth 4.6B years ago? That doesn't sound right, the Earth isn't that old. Flew off its former body 4.6B years ago? How do we measure that? Created 4.6B years ago? How does one define created, considering everything was ultimately created during the big bang?

ardit33 5y ago
Created by clumped dust 4.6b years ago when the solar system was being formed.... but it hasn't been part of a larger body, so it is not that compressed, so it is not a chunk of another larger body that split off from collisions. It contains organic material, which means the dust that formed our solar system, contained plenty of it. If it arrived yesterday in earth, it still is 4.6b old. "Identifying organic compounds would support the idea that early meteorites carried amino acids – the building blocks of life – to supply the Earth’s primordial soup where life first began. “Carbonaceous chondrites contain organic compounds including amino acids, which are found in all living things,” said Director of Astrochemistry at EAARO Derek Robson who found the meteorite and who will soon join Loughborough University as an academic visitor for collaborative research. “Being able to identify and confirm the presence of such compounds from a material that existed before the Earth was born would be an important step towards understanding how life began.”"
- ars 5y ago
  > but it hasn't been part of a larger body, so it is not that compressed, so it is not a chunk of another larger body that split off from collisions. It's way too small to clump from its own gravity, it pretty much has to be a portion of something MUCH larger.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    That assertion gets into questions of asteroid formation, which I find fascinating, though there's very little information I've been able to find. Keep in mind that "gravitational accretion" simply kicks the can a bit further: the chunks that accrete gravitationally must themselves form and congeal somehow. What I understand of solar system formation is that all "metallic" solar systems (though with a substantial portion of elements other than hydrogen) from from the remains of earlier stars. So you have a nova, supernova, stellar collapse, collision (stars, white dwarves, neutron stars, ...). This ejects heavy materials (principally H, He, C, O, N, though others --- water is probably the most common non-elemental molecule in the Universe), and also creates pressure waves and imparts angular momentum. Both factors can draw material together. There's also probably a lot of plasma in the mix, so that different portions of the cloud carry different charges. These may be attracted, repelled, and spark discharges (which might themselves melt and fuse material). There may also be surface-tension effects and other factors at play. Somehow, clumps form. Gravity is a force at work, but not the only force. Disclaimer: not an astronomer, just interested in far too many divers subjects. If anyone has anything authoritative to say on this I'm all ears. Most references I can find are either extremely basic, or address the formation of asteroid belts but not the objects within them. There's some hypothesis on formation (condensation, shock waves, jet flows) here: http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept02/isotopicAges.html http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept02/isotopicAges.html
dredmorbius 5y ago
It's the time since the rock itself fused from molten or other non-fixed form. The age of formation of rock is typically determined unequivocably by radiometric dating. That "clock" uses the ratios of long-lived radioactive elements and their decay products (this is not radio carbon dating, which is similar but effective over a much shorter timespan of about 50,000 years). The radiometric clock starts when the materials in the sample solidify and initial proportions of mother and daughter elements are fixed, "neither the parent nuclide nor the daughter product can enter or leave the material after its formation" (Wikipedia). That point in time is the "age" of the rock. The specific decay chains used in geology are uranium–lead, samarium–neodymium, potassium–argon, rubidium–strontium, and uranium–thorium. These may rely on crystaline structures which cannot form when the daughter elements (decay products) are present, therefor the amount of daughter element present gives the age. (I know this is the case for some methods, I'm unsure it applies to all. The "this structure cannot form when the daughter products are present" feature is a compelling argument for age.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating Newly-formed lava or other molten materials are "new" --- they've just been created as rock. The elements within them are older --- those date to whatever radiological apocalypse formed them (stellar fusion for elements up to iron, various novae and collisions between white dwarves and neutron stars for elements heavier than iron). And of course the protons and neutrons comprising them ... mostly ... date to the origin of the Universe in the Big Bang (there is some spontaneous creation of particles due to quantum energy and mass-energy fluctuations, though that's minimal). The atomic transmutation of elements gives some interesting results. Virtually all of the helium in the Universe formed in stars from fusion of hydrogen. A very small percentage was formed in the Big Bang. But virtually all helium on Earth is the result of radioactive decay of heavy elements, forming beta particles (two protons and two neutrons), that is, a helium nucleus. When that picks up electrons, it becomes helium. It's generally trapped with natural gas and produced as a by-product of gas wells.
Koshkin 5y ago
I mean, probably in the same way as one would define, say, a person's age and the time of "creation". (Individual atoms are, of course, much older than any the object that is built from them, but that does not matter.)

yongjik 5y ago

Not 100% sure but it seems clickbait - the title sounds like the meteorite was sitting on Earth for 4.6B years, but after reading the article, it sounds like the rock was 4.6B years old - it likely fell to the Earth much more recently. In that case, it's not exactly remarkable - I think pretty much all the asteroids in the Solar System are 4.6B years old, because that's when they were all created.

vardump 5y ago
I'm no geologist, but I'd guess nothing can survive anywhere near 4.6B years on this planet with weather systems.
- Spare_account 5y ago
  Rocks formed on earth have been dated as old as 4 billion years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_dated_rocks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_dated_rocks It is unusual, though, you're right.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Is it unusual because of weather systems or because of plate tectonics (rocks get pushed into the mantle and melted down and new ones emerge later)?
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Both, though plate tectonics are the ultimate limit. There's extraordinarily little primaeval crust extant on Earth. The Canadian Shield / Laurentine Plain is one of the largest, and is dated to 3.96 billion years, though the oldest is in Australia (Jack Hills region), with dates to 4.39 billion years via zircon crystals. (I believe that may geologically related to a region in southern Africa, with which it was originally joined, though cannot find a reference.) The ocean floor is virtually completely newer material, little of it over a 200 million years old (about 5% of Earth's total age), due to subduction. Continental crust is lighter, floats on top of the heavier oceanic crust, and has at least a chance of survival. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-old-is-the-ocean-floor-3960755 https://www.thoughtco.com/how-old-is-the-ocean-floor-3960755 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hills https://www.geologyin.com/2015/11/44-billion-year-old-zircon-is-oldest.html https://www.geologyin.com/2015/11/44-billion-year-old-zircon... https://www.geologyin.com/2016/03/the-oldest-mountain-on-earth.html?m=1 https://www.geologyin.com/2016/03/the-oldest-mountain-on-ear...

mint2 5y ago

I really wanted to know how they managed to find it, but aside from some offhand comments they didn’t go there. Found in imprint of a horseshoe? What? Tracking it before it landed? Like in desert areas people will metal detect for meteors, but how did they find this one.

anonAndOn 5y ago
It helps to have friends' assistance, but you can do it alone. https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/how-to-find-meteorites/ https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/how-to-find-meteor...
chejazi 5y ago
I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe there is a path travelled by horseback often, and that's just where it was found

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

j_walter 5y ago

God put it there...

MeteorMarc 5y ago

This link describes the find of the meteorite. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/march/uk-fireball-meteorite-has-been-recovered-driveway-gloucestershire.html https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/march/uk-fireball-m...

pkdpic_y9k 5y ago

So do amino acids self-replicate on their own in some way independent of DNA / protective membranes etc? A little beyond my 8th-grade understanding of science but trying to get there...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

markus_zhang 5y ago

Was watching X-Files and wondering if Mulder ia going to Scotland yard to meet his girl friend!

yesenadam 5y ago

I just watched Werner Herzog's latest documentary (with vulcanologist Clive Oppenheimer) Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds[0] (2020) about asteroids, meteorites, comets etc and their impact on the Earth and human cultures past, present and possible future. Most of it consist of interviews with experts in the subject from around the world, showing them at work, e.g. with the Hawaiians that look out for asteroids on a collision path with Earth, and found ʻOumuamua. They go to the site of the Yucatan meteorite that killed the dinosaurs, go hunting meteorites in Antarctica etc. Maybe the most amazing bit was a sequence of photographs of micro-meteorites found in Norway. I thought it was great, highly recommended! New to Herzog? Most of the user reviews on IMDb are complaining it's not the usual impersonal science program they'd evidently expected, so please don't make that mistake. There are a few segments about meteorites in myths/religions. Herzog's documentaries all kind of feel like anthropology, no matter the topic. He's fascinated in people, and celebrates us in all our weirdness. e.g. His 2016 documentary about the internet, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World[1], was one of the best things on the subject I'd seen. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9203832 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9203832 [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5275828 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5275828