Rock Much Older Than Earth Found In West Of Australia

Every single year, the Earth's night sky is lit up by millions of celestial fireballs. These fireballs are termed as "shooting stars" but they do not have anything to do with the stars. Whenever this small matter from outer space enters the Earth's atmosphere, it generates a flash of light called "meteor" or "shooting star."

Last Tuesday, a newly discovered meteorite has been recovered from Western Australia farm by a group of sky watchers. Astonishingly, the meteorite is believed that it fell somewhere in October.

According to scientists, they estimate that the small meteor weighing 1.15 kg is 4.56 billion years old. This makes it older compared to the planet Earth.

Professor Phil Band, Founder of Curtin University Desert Fireball Network (DFN) and a planetary geologist, said in a press release that "The fireball was picked up by four of our cameras. Our team was able to track the fall line and calculate its landing spot to within 200 meters of where it was subsequently found."

The DFN defined that the meteorite is a type of "chondrite," a meteorite that has not been cooked up enough to melt.

"Meteorites tell us pretty much everything we want to know about the solar system... but unless we know where they came from, there's a really big piece of that puzzle left," Professor Bland said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Martin Towner of Curtin's Department of Applied Geology said in a press release that the rock is "pristine, unweathered and fresh sample."

According to Space, Professor Bland states that "We managed to get in a very pristine way, that we can find some quite soluble elements of minerals in there, or volatile minerals that can tell us about water and organics in solar system."

ABC added that the team carefully retrieved the meteorite. It brought back the meteorite to Curtin University for CT Scanning since the preliminary analysis has been done already and named the meteorite as chondrite.

Finally, Professor Bland gave assurance that they will find more about the meteorite. They will study its 3D model in detail and conduct chemical analysis of a thin section of the meteorite.