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Wednesday, 3 March 2021

A classic meteorite!

I've just finished cutting and polishing a few meteorites (this is called 'windowing' in the trade!) to show their interiors. This particular specimen from the Sahara has all the features of a classic Common Chondrite - the oldest material in the Solar System:

  • A dark fusion crust, melted by its passage through the atmosphere
  • Shiny flecks of nickel-iron
  • Spherical chondrules that accreted in the ancient Solar Nebula
  • Evidence of orientation, showing the way it passed through the atmosphere
This is probably an L4 or L5 chondrite: amazing to reflect on the fact that it's 4.52 billion years old - older than the Earth!





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