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In the spring of 2020, an amazing relic was discovered in a remote region of the Sahara desert: an ultra-rare chunk of an embryonic planet that existed before Earth was born.
Known as Erg Chech 002 (EC 002), the meteorite was forged within the crust of an ancient protoplanet, a small celestial body that serves as a building block for planets. The volcanic space rock is “the oldest known lava” that has ever fallen to Earth and offers an unprecedented glimpse of planetary formation in the early solar system, according to a study published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists led by Jean-Alix Barrat, a professor of geochemistry at the University of Western Brittany in France, jumped at the opportunity to examine this extraordinary time capsule from the infancy of the solar system, which is unlike anything that has been seen before.
“EC 002 is clearly distinguishable from all asteroid groups, and no object with spectral characteristics similar to EC 002 has been identified to date,” the team said in the study, adding that remnants of primordial crusts are “not only rare in the meteorite record, but they are also rare today in the asteroid belt.”
“This suggests that the earliest differentiated protoplanets that populated the solar system, as well as most of their debris, were certainly destroyed or subsequently accreted to the growing rocky planets, making the discovery of meteorites originating from primordial crusts an exceptional occurrence,” the researchers noted.
Read more here. (Vice)
Known as Erg Chech 002 (EC 002), the meteorite was forged within the crust of an ancient protoplanet, a small celestial body that serves as a building block for planets. The volcanic space rock is “the oldest known lava” that has ever fallen to Earth and offers an unprecedented glimpse of planetary formation in the early solar system, according to a study published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists led by Jean-Alix Barrat, a professor of geochemistry at the University of Western Brittany in France, jumped at the opportunity to examine this extraordinary time capsule from the infancy of the solar system, which is unlike anything that has been seen before.
“EC 002 is clearly distinguishable from all asteroid groups, and no object with spectral characteristics similar to EC 002 has been identified to date,” the team said in the study, adding that remnants of primordial crusts are “not only rare in the meteorite record, but they are also rare today in the asteroid belt.”
“This suggests that the earliest differentiated protoplanets that populated the solar system, as well as most of their debris, were certainly destroyed or subsequently accreted to the growing rocky planets, making the discovery of meteorites originating from primordial crusts an exceptional occurrence,” the researchers noted.
Read more here. (Vice)
