4.5 BILLION-YEAR-OLD METEORITE DISCOVERED IN AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK COULD HELP REVEAL THE ORIGINS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

A meteorite older than the Earth that researchers discovered embedded in the crust of a dried lake in southern Australia could help us understand more about the origins of the solar system.

 

The 1.7-kilogram meteorite was found by a team of geologists and researchers from Perth's Curtin University, after a painstaking search that was conducted just hours before heavy rainfall which would have destroyed all visible traces of the meteorite's landing.
Five remote cameras located around the dried bed of Lake Eyre, which are designed to detect falling meteorites, spotted the object as it came down to Earth, ABC reported.

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Using the images, the team managed to triangulate the meteorite's path, and narrowed their search area down to a 500-metre line in the middle of the lake.
In the three-day search that followed, an aerial spotter, a drone, researchers Robert Howie and Phil Bland and local Aboriginal guides Dean Stuart and Dave Strangways combed the soft clay of the lake bed in search of the telltale crater created by the meteorite when it hit the Earth.
It was finally found on New Year's Eve, and Bland had the honour of digging out of the ground.

Phil Bland celebrates after making the remarkable discovery

At around 4.5 billion years old, the meteorite is a prime sample of the kind of material that was created during the early days of the solar system.
Gathering samples of meteors and conducting tests to determine their chemical make-up and formation can give us an unparalleled insight into the history of Earth and the solar system.
When we study rocks from Earth, we're looking at items that have been processed and altered by geological forces over millions of years.