What do meteorites come from

But might some of them have come not from asteroids, but from comets that originated in the outer reaches of the Solar System? What would such meteorites be like, and how would we find them? Fortunately, we can actively look for meteorites, rather than hoping to stumble across one lying on the ground.

And by training cameras on the sky to spot them, we can track and recover any resulting meteorites. The largest such network is the Desert Fireball Network , which features around 50 cameras covering more than 2.

Our research, published in The Planetary Science Journal , scoured every fireball tracked by the DFN between and , in search of possible cometary meteorites. In total, there were 50 fireballs that came from comet-like orbits not associated with a meteor shower. We concluded that debris from comets breaks up and disintegrates before it even gets close to becoming a meteorite. The next question is: if all meteorites are asteroidal, how did some of them end up in such weird, comet-like orbits?

For this to be possible, debris from the main asteroid belt must have been knocked from its original orbit by a collision, close gravitational encounter, or some other mechanism. Meteorites have given us our most profound insights into the formation and evolution of our solar system.

However, it is now clear that these samples represent only part of the whole picture. It is a feldspathic regolith breccia, meaning it contains large amounts of the mineral anorthite, a calcium-aluminum silicate mineral that is abundantly present in the lunar highlands.

All meteorites except those from the Moon and Mars, however, originated from the asteroid belt. Three subclasses of stone meteorites — howardites, eucrites, and diogenites — are high-temperature basaltic rocks similar in composition to the asteroid 4 Vesta, so Vesta is likely their parent body. The primitive carbonaceous chondrite Tagish Lake has been spectroscopically tied to asteroid Haidea. Most associations are made simply by asteroid classes, as astronomers have much more work to do to tie specific asteroids to meteorites that have fallen to Earth.

Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter. View our Privacy Policy. By signing up you may also receive reader surveys and occasional special offers. We do not sell, rent or trade our email lists. Login or Register Customer Service.

RISE —. PHASE —. Tonight's Sky — Change location. US state, Canadian province, or country. Tonight's Sky — Select location. Tonight's Sky — Enter coordinates. UTC Offset:. Picture of the Day Image Galleries. Watch : Mining the Moon for rocket fuel. Queen guitarist Brian May and David Eicher launch new astronomy book. Last chance to join our Costa Rica Star Party! Learn about the Moon in a great new book New book chronicles the space program.

Dave's Universe Year of Pluto. Groups Why Join? Amelin, P. Koefoed, T. Iizuka, and A. Irving, S. Kuehner, T. Bunch, K. Ziegler, G. Chen, C. Herd, R. Conrey, and S. Ralew, Ungrouped mafic achondrite Northwest Africa a reduced, iron-poor cumulate olivine gabbro from a differentiated planetary parent body , 44 th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference , Jabeen, A. Ali, N. Banerjee, G. Osinski, S. Ralew, and S. How do we know where meteorites come from? WA Museum Meteorites are solid pieces of natural space debris that do not completely disintegrate during their descent through the atmosphere.

But, how do scientists know where a meteorite comes from? Is this rock from Earth? Is this meteorite from the Moon? Is this meteorite from an asteroid? Is this meteorite from Venus? Mars seems to be the only possible candidate Olympus Mons is a large volcano on the planet Mars. Image copyright NASA Mars has no active volcanism at the present time but evidences suggest that the Olympus Mons may still be volcanically active million years ago, a very recent age in geological terms.

Image copyright WA Museum The oxygen isotopes ratio is substantially different in terrestrial rocks, SNC meteorites and most meteorites groups. Bubbles of Martian atmosphere Let us leave aside Nakhla for a little while and take us a look at EETA , the first meteorite that provided conclusive proof of a Martian origin.

Image copyright NASA When an asteroid or comet collides with another body, such as a planet, fractured fragments of the impacted body can be ejected under favorable conditions.