Scientists have studied a rare iron meteorite in detail, discovering what orbit its parent body occupied before crashing into Earth. It is the first iron meteorite for which such orbit has been calculated.
The 12-inch-long (30 centimeters), 30-pound (14 kilograms) chunk of space rock fell to Earth after a fireball erupted over Sweden in 2020. Iron meteorites such as this constitute just around 2% of the space rocks that make it to Earth's surface, so the object became a rare and valuable sample for researchers.
Iron meteorites are believed to be fragments of molten metallic cores at the heart of planetesimals, small bodies that existed around 4.5 billion years ago. Many of these bodies eventually came together back then to form the solar system's planets, including Earth.
Source: www.space.com
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