A new study suggests that the meteor which fell to Russia in 2013 could be part of a larger event that formed the moon. The space rock is considered the largest natural cosmic object that entered the planet. The meteor's explosion occurred in the skies of the Russian city Chelyabinsk.
The research was led by scholars from the University of Cambridge. Based on their findings, the space rock might have been among the fragments produced by the ancient cosmic collision that broke the Earth and developed the lunar body some 4.5 billion years ago.
Moon Formation Clues in 2013 Chelyabinsk Impact
Previous theories showed the possibility of the moon being formed through the help of our planet - at a time when the solar system is still developing at its early age. According to the scientific guesses, the lunar body was a product of a separate Mars-sized cosmic body that crashed to Earth's territories.
About nine years ago, the Chelyabinsk meteor entered the atmosphere with energy that sums up to 500,000 tonnes of trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives. The rock, which scaled to almost 20 meters, produced a shockwave around the globe twice upon hit.
The Chelyabinsk meteor damaged multiple infrastructures and injured over 1,600 individuals, according to DailyMail.
The new study's authors were able to construct the new theory due to the novel approach of dating cosmic collisions. The process included several microscopic data that were extracted from minerals contained in meteorites.
Despite the evidence collected in this research, the scholars believe that further examination must be met to have a wider perspective of the solar system's early age and how its evolution took place to establish its current design.
University of Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences expert and author of the study Craig Walton said that the ages of meteorite impacts are commonly controversial.
Walton explained that their team's effort demonstrated how the consolidation of clues from impact histories matters. It is just like investigating an ancient crime scene, he continued.
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Early Age of Solar System Hidden in Space Rocks
The solar system was formed simply through a mix of dust and clouds. Repeating this process produced fragments, rocks, and eventually, larger bodies such as planets. The studies revolving around the history of these materials, on the other hand, are challenging compared to what we thought.
Our glimpse of the past is limited by the natural tampering caused by weather activities and geological events, disrupting the planets' original planetary structure. But thanks to the asteroids and meteorites, this problem could be resolved.
The space rocks contain undisturbed minerals as they hovered throughout the void for millions of years. Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Geology and Geophysics expert Sen Hu, who co-authored the study, explained that phosphate minerals found in the most primitive space rocks are useful when dating shock events of the meteorites and their parent bodies.
By microscopic observation on the phosphate minerals extracted from the Chelyabinsk event, the authors found that the temperature and pressures leaned towards an impact 50 million years ago. According to the experts, this period coincides with the collision of the foreign body that caused the Earth-Moon formation.
Further research will be conducted to identify when the moon was completed, allowing the team to gather more insights for their theory. The study was published in Communications Earth & Environment, titled "Ancient and recent collisions revealed by phosphate minerals in the Chelyabinsk meteorite."
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