Tiny "Pancakes" Suggest Some Asteroids May Stay Active
Analysis of a meteorite that fell in Costa Rica shows that its parent body may resemble the asteroid Bennu.
By Damond Benningfield
22 September 2022
A technician holds the Field Museum’s fragment of the Aguas Zarcas meteorite. The meteorite includes odd chondrules that suggest the parent body was similar to Bennu. Credit: John Weinstein, FMNH
On the night of 23 April 2019, the peace of the rain forest near Aguas Zarcas, Costa Rica, was shattered by a brilliant streak of light in the sky, a loud blast, and a hailstorm of rocks—the remains of a small asteroid that exploded in the atmosphere. One fragment punched a grapefruit-sized hole in the roof of a house, and a second smacked into a doghouse.
Within days, the silence was broken again as scientists and collectors from around the world began scouring the landscape for fragments, which were worth more than gold—both literally and scientifically.
One team of geologists proposed that the Aguas Zarcas meteorite demonstrates that at least one class of asteroids may be busier than expected, with small pebbles hopping around their surfaces like kernels of popcorn in the microwave—action already observed on the surface of the asteroid Bennu.
“Asteroids were pretty active in the early solar system, but today, most people think they’re dead,” said Xin Yang, a graduate student at the University of Chicago and lead author of the study. “This tells us that carbonaceous asteroids may not be dead; they just have a low level of activity.”
More:
https://eos.org/articles/tiny-pancakes-suggest-some-asteroids-may-stay-active
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