According to a new study published this week in the Communications Earth and Environment journal on Nature, the Chelyabinsk meteorite could have been involved in the creation of the Moon.
Craig Walton, who leads the research and is based at Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences, said that meteorite impact ages are often controversial.
The Chelyabinsk meteorite could have been the one that helped create the Moon by crashing into the Earth and shooting off pieces that would become our lunar satellite. Important events in the solar system happened at the same time.
Asteroids help scientists understand how the inner Solar System was created because they carry clues about previous impacts and important minerals that tell their age. According to ScienceAlert.com, meteorites can be dated by the amount of lead in them. The Zircon crystals reject lead. Any lead levels are the result of radioactive decay. The age of zircon can be measured because we know how long it takes to decay.
Two weeks after the event, a video was posted on ScienceatNASA showing dash cam footage of a bright, glowing tail of a meteorite. The explosion caused about 1,500 people to seek medical attention, mostly due to broken glass, according to EarthSky.org.
At the time, the video reported that scientists were trying to find out more about the origin of the exploded meteorite.
The initial explosion was scary, but the follow up on the meteorite's history is intriguing. We were able to witness the rock in real time because it may have been returning to a planet it crashed into millions of years ago.
There are more on space news.
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