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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