You might remember that some time ago I received a sample of the stony meteorite NWA869 that appeared to have an artifact embedded inside. By 'artifact' I really am suggesting that the 4.5 billion year old chondrite contains a metal object that somebody made before the meteorite formed in the solar nebula, even before the planets!
I've sent photos and information about this strange inclusion to any number of academic bodies, all resulting in a deafening silence. Fortunately I have a contact who works in a laboratory with access to scanning electron microscopes and spectroscopy equipment: the results of their examination are, to say the least, interesting!
The first four images are of two regions of the metal object and the associated spectroscopic analysis: the next four are of the surrounding matrix of the meteorite. You'll see that the inclusion is predominantly composed of Iron, Oxygen and Carbon, with a much lower Nickel content. The stone meteorite has a typical composition of Oxygen, Silicon and Aluminium: the elements that make up minerals such as Olivine, a magnesium-aluminium silicate that is extremely common in stone meteorites.
To sum up: the meteorite has the typical composition of a common chondrite (as we'd expect) while the metallic inclusion has a composition more characteristic of steel than an iron meteorite: the amounts of oxygen and carbon in particular are atypical....
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