Meteorite that crashed into B.C. woman's house could shed light on solar system's origin, physicist says
A small, angular rock that one Canadian physicist says looks like a chunk of black cheese has the potential to help scientists understand how the early solar system formed.
Peter G. Brown, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Western Ontario, says the meteorite made its fiery way to Earth on Oct. 3, after spinning out of its orbit in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, nearly 180 million kilometres away.
It tore through the roof of a home in Golden, B.C., narrowly missing the head a sleeping woman.
Brown says the woman has loaned the rock to the university and, for the next month or so, it will become “a small piece of a larger puzzle” as scientists “disentangle how the early solar system formed.”
He says the 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite is older than anything on Earth but is formed of minerals found here, like iron and nickel, although in much larger proportions, giving it unusual weight for a rock its size.
The exact chemistry is still being studied, but Brown says the findings will link the rock to specific asteroids spinning beyond Mars, while his goal is to use photos of the Oct. 3 fireball to compute the meteorite's orbit, then merge the chemical and physical data to track the rock's origin.
It will eventually be returned to the woman whose roof it punctured, but Brown says it will first have given scientists a peek at how the asteroid belt formed, how asteroids evolved and how all that played a role in the formation of the planets.
“This piece is sort of a primitive piece of the original material that formed in the early solar system,” Brown says in an interview from his office in London, Ont.
“The sheer quantity of information that's hidden in the rock that we can tease out, in a lot of ways it's like a really, really dense messenger of information about the early solar system.”
The recovery of this meteorite and the associated photos of its fireball over southwestern Canada are fairly rare, Brown says.
It happens only once every five or ten years, but he says the data produced will be combined with similar events elsewhere in the world.
“We are building up a bigger statistical collection of these sorts of samples with spatial context but each one is unique, and it certainly makes the meteorite science a lot more valuable to know what the original orbit was of the object.”
“We learn a lot of new things about the solar system each time we do this,” Brown says.
Initial analysis of the meteorite could take a few weeks to a month, but more detailed examination “could go on for years,” he says.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2021.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canadian gov't proposes new foreign influence registry as part of wide-spanning new bill
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is proposing a suite of new measures and law changes aimed at countering foreign interference in Canada, amid extensive scrutiny over past meddling attempts and an ever-evolving threat landscape.
Boeing Starliner capsule's first crewed test flight postponed
The long-awaited first crewed test flight of Boeing's new Starliner space capsule was called off for at least 24 hours over a technical issue that launch teams were unable to resolve in time for the planned Monday night lift-off.
Teacher charged in historical sexual assault of Calgary teenage girl
Calgary police have charged a teacher with the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl more than 20 years ago.
Winnipeg man admits to killing four women, argues he's not criminally responsible
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
Man banned from owning animals after fatal Calgary dog attack
The owner of three Calgary dogs that got loose and mauled a woman to death in 2022 has been ordered to pay a $15,000 fine within one year and banned from owning any animal for 15 years.
East-end Ottawa family dealing with massive rat infestation
Residents in Ottawa’s Elmridge Gardens complex are dealing with a rat infestation that just won’t go away. Now, after doing everything they can to try to fix the issue, they are pleading with the city to step in and help.
Mediterranean staple may lower your risk of death from dementia, study finds
A daily spoonful of olive oil could lower your risk of dying from dementia, according to a new study by Harvard scientists.
An El Nino-less summer is coming. Here's what that could mean for Canada
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Newfoundland and Labrador latest province to tighten rules on Airbnbs
Newfoundland and Labrador is the latest jurisdiction to bring in stricter rules for short-term rentals, with a coming set of regulations that will force operators to register with the provincial government.