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
'Nonsense:' Doug Ford slams lawsuits filed by Ontario school boards against social media platforms
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Several flight attendants from Pakistan have gone missing after landing in Canada
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
Tipping is off the table at this Toronto restaurant
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 mm among weather alerts in effect for 7 provinces
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres, air quality advisories and other alerts have been issued for seven Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Canada Post’s newest stamp features special cookies for Islamic holiday
Canada Post’s newest specialty stamps feature “melt-in-your-mouth” desserts to mark two Islamic festivals, the crown corporation announced Thursday.
King Charles calls for acts of friendship in first public remarks since Kate's cancer diagnosis
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
A dog and a bird formed an unlikely friendship. Their separation has infuriated followers
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.
Statistics Canada reports real GDP up 0.6 per cent in January as Quebec strikes end
Canada's real gross domestic product grew 0.6 per cent in January, helped by the end of public sector strikes in Quebec in November and December, Statistics Canada said Thursday.
Ukrainian child asylum seekers in St. John’s get class of their own
Roughly 50 children will gathered in a St. John’s classroom for the first time on Saturday for unique lessons on Ukrainian language, culture and history.