Publication Date:
2009-03-28
Description:
In the absence of a firm link between individual meteorites and their asteroidal parent bodies, asteroids are typically characterized only by their light reflection properties, and grouped accordingly into classes. On 6 October 2008, a small asteroid was discovered with a flat reflectance spectrum in the 554-995 nm wavelength range, and designated 2008 TC(3) (refs 4-6). It subsequently hit the Earth. Because it exploded at 37 km altitude, no macroscopic fragments were expected to survive. Here we report that a dedicated search along the approach trajectory recovered 47 meteorites, fragments of a single body named Almahata Sitta, with a total mass of 3.95 kg. Analysis of one of these meteorites shows it to be an achondrite, a polymict ureilite, anomalous in its class: ultra-fine-grained and porous, with large carbonaceous grains. The combined asteroid and meteorite reflectance spectra identify the asteroid as F class, now firmly linked to dark carbon-rich anomalous ureilites, a material so fragile it was not previously represented in meteorite collections.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jenniskens, P -- Shaddad, M H -- Numan, D -- Elsir, S -- Kudoda, A M -- Zolensky, M E -- Le, L -- Robinson, G A -- Friedrich, J M -- Rumble, D -- Steele, A -- Chesley, S R -- Fitzsimmons, A -- Duddy, S -- Hsieh, H H -- Ramsay, G -- Brown, P G -- Edwards, W N -- Tagliaferri, E -- Boslough, M B -- Spalding, R E -- Dantowitz, R -- Kozubal, M -- Pravec, P -- Borovicka, J -- Charvat, Z -- Vaubaillon, J -- Kuiper, J -- Albers, J -- Bishop, J L -- Mancinelli, R L -- Sandford, S A -- Milam, S N -- Nuevo, M -- Worden, S P -- England -- Nature. 2009 Mar 26;458(7237):485-8. doi: 10.1038/nature07920.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉SETI Institute, Carl Sagan Center, 515 North Whisman Road, Mountain View, California 94043, USA. Petrus.M.Jenniskens@nasa.gov〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19325630" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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