“It is possible that radioactive compounds in the meteorite’s parent body heated the nascent planet to the point that water ice became liquid.” “We determined that minerals such as calcium and magnesium carbonate likely precipitated from liquid water 2.4 to 5.0 million years after the formation of the solar system,” says Jilly. Based on isotopes of the elements manganese and chromium, NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow Christine Jilly and colleagues now report when that happened. Some fragments escaped alteration by liquid water, while others where heavily altered. ![]() “The formation of the solar system did not fully erase and homogenize these signatures and Sutter’s Mill provides the clearest record yet,” said Yin, also a co-lead of the Sutter’s Mill Meteorite Consortium. Some of these materials remained in the Sutter’s Mill meteorite. They found that at least five different stellar sources composed of mixtures of 54-chromium-rich and -poor materials must have contributed matter to the nascent solar system four and half billion years ago. University of California (UC), Davis researchers Akane Yamakawa and Qing-Zhu Yin studied the different forms of the element chromium, called isotopes. “Bits and pieces that originated in the interior of other much larger parent bodies.” “We suspect that these diamonds are so-called xenoliths,” says Kebukawa. The larger diamonds found in Sutter’s Mill may have had another origin closer to home. Nanodiamonds are thought to originate in the atmospheres of stars. “The two 10-micron diamond grains we found in this meteorite are too small to sparkle in a ring,” said Mike Zolensky, space scientist of Johnson, working with associate professor Yoko Kebukawa late of Hokkaido University, Japan, “But their size is much larger than the nanometer-sized diamonds commonly found in such meteorites.” The diamonds are transparent and colorless in this optical image of the same focused ion beam-prepared slice of Sutter’s Mill number SM2. The origin of the diamonds is something of a mystery since they are considerably larger than those found in any chondritic meteorites. This is a secondary electron image of two large diamond crystals in the matrix of the Sutter’s Mill number SM2 meteorite, as prepared by a focused ion beam. In his search, Jenniskens was guided by Marc Fries of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, who describes in detail how Doppler weather radar enabled the rapid and pristine collection of the meteorites. Jenniskens found one of the first and one of the most unusual of the Sutter’s Mill meteorites before rain hit the area. “From what falls naturally to the ground, much does not survive the violent collision with Earth’s atmosphere.” “Sutter’s Mill gives us a glimpse of what future NASA spacecraft may find when they bring back samples from a primitive asteroid,” said consortium lead Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. They report their results in thirteen papers in the November issue of Meteoritics & Planetary Science. Researchers digging deeper into the origins of the Sutter’s Mill meteorite, which fell in California’s Gold Country in 2012, found diamonds and other “treasures” that provide important new insight into the early days of our solar system. The orange glow persists from the main 48-km high breakup event. ![]() Lisa Warren of Reno, Nevada, took these three photographs of the Sutter’s Mill meteoroid in flight at Rancho Haven, using a hand-held Pentax K200D, f = 18 mm, digital SLR camera. ![]() A group of NASA Ames employees went to the mountains to assist in the search on Thursday, May 3 and Friday, May 4, 2012. Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer with the SETI Institute working in collaboration with SSERVI (then NLSI), led the search. The people who work at NASA had an opportunity to participate in the meteor hunt. This is exciting stuff - The Sutter’s Mill Meteorite could be the most profound sample collected in over 40 years.” “It’s like asking ‘how did life on Earth begin?’ and then having a fossil fall right in your back yard. “This is among the most chemically primitive meteorites,” said SSERVI Deputy Director Greg Schmidt. By studying the meteor, scientists also will learn more about the early solar system and the formation of our planets. Scientist believe that this meteor could hold the answers to the origin of life on Earth and the universe. The meteorites are very interesting to scientists from an astrobiology perspective, as they contain molecules related to how the building blocks for life on Earth may have been delivered from outer space. The Sutter’s Mill meteorite is a very rare type of meteor, and scientists have precious few samples of this kind of material. This is a follow-on story from our previous post on the subject.
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