The Earth has always been pelted by meteorites, however it was recently discovered that these rocks from space have a different composition so they are somehow uncommon. These types are not the same from those that mill around the asteroid belt located in the middle of Jupiter and Mars.
Space scientists believe that most of the meteorites that often come down on earth in this modern times are the same pieces that resulted from a collision that happened some 466 million years ago. During that pre-historic period, when something strikes a massive asteroid it typically results to a number of rocks crashing into one another.
Consequently, the pieces or shards of these rocks started to rain down on earth, and over those million years until today, these meteorites still bombard this planet. However, until now, researchers are not sure what meteorites looked like prior to the space big bang.
In the journal called Nature Astronomy, researchers published their findings as they dig out information to find answers. In the end, they concluded that the compositions of a meteorite has changed drastically overtime.
"We found that the meteorite flux, the variety of meteorites falling to Earth, was very, very different from what we see today." The Field Museum quoted research's lead author, Philipp Heck as saying.
He added, "Looking at the kinds of meteorites that have fallen to Earth in the last hundred million years doesn't give you a full picture. It would be like looking outside on a snowy winter day and concluding that every day is snowy, even though it's not snowy in the summer."
In explaining what the meteorites are made of, Heck said that the chrome-spinels and crystals that carry the mineral chromite has not changed even after millions of years. Now, as they are still the same until now, the lead author stated that they can use the spinels to figure what the original body that end up as micrometeorites was made made of.
In conclusion, the scientists discovered through their research that up to 34 percent of the pre-collision meteorites are the type called the achondrites. The meteorites today were found to contain .45 percent of this achondrites.
Some other space rocks that peppered earth today likely came from the impact involving the second biggest known asteroid called Vesta. The collision supposedly took place about 1 billion years ago.
