A fire near Hamburg, Michigan in 2018 could give new insights into the history of the solar system, researchers say.

Fireball – a kind of very bright meteor that can be noticed even in daylight – it was spotted in several states while flying across the sky on the evening of 16 January 2018; The meteor also produced an atmospheric shockwave equivalent to a magnitude 2.0 earthquake.

The walnut-sized pieces were quickly recovered from the strawberry and bus lakes using data from scientists tracking their trajectories using NASA weather radar.

“It’s hard to find a pebble-sized piece in an icy lake or a snow blanket,” said Philip Heck, co-author and associate professor at the University of Chicago, who is also curator of meteorite, rock and mineral collections at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History.

Hack and colleagues have now released a report in depth to test three of the meteor fragments taken out at the Field Museum.

The results show that the space rock is of a type known as H4 chondrite – a relatively rare subtype of a class of meteorites common in the collection.

“[These] “Only 4% of all falls today,” Hack said.

Heck added that preliminary analysis of Space Rock revealed that the meteorite contained 2,600 different organic compounds. A larger array has been found among other meteorites, although Heck said the studies add to the weight of the multi-concept concept that meteorites may have played a role in starting life on Earth.

“I personally found it amazing how many organic compounds were still in the meteorite, despite the thermal metaphor.”

But there were other insights.

“We got it [this meteorite] Its parents were expelled from the asteroid 12 years ago, “Heck said, referring to the first evidence of this particular phenomenon.

And analysis of the argon layer in the meteorite produced by radioactive decay, shedding light on the history of the asteroid, the effects occur when the hack element is revealed. “It simply came to our notice then [parent asteroid] It was formed 4.4 billion years ago, ”said Heck. “It was pretty dull from that asteroid.”

Heck said the Hamburg meteorite landed on icy ice, which was relatively uncontrollable. However, in order to obtain a truly primitive specimen, space rocks need to be recovered directly from the asteroid: NASA has begun work on a number of space missions, including the Osiris-Rex spacecraft to return to Earth in 2023.

Dr. Catherine Joy, a meteorologist and lunar scientist at the University of Manchester involved in the report, said space rocks like the Hamburg meteorite are provocative because they have fresh extrinsic specimens.

“Looking at minerals and age and chemistry [meteorites] “We understand that the asteroid body of its parents is related to other asteroids and smaller bodies that we know formed simultaneously in the first few million years after the formation of the sun,” he said.

Joy added that the UK Fireball Network is currently watching the sky for meteorites, and has encouraged readers to report to their network to encourage them.

“It’s going to be an exciting day when we’ve got the right kind of fireball and can go out, look for the falling rock and analyze where it came from,” he said. “It would be absolutely amazing if it was from a completely unique kind of asteroid or from a large body piece like the moon or Mars.”