Astronomers Tracking an Asteroid

The Astronomers found a meteroite that matched with an asteroid. This work has not been done ever before. It gives them a glimpse into the past when planets formed and an idea how to avoid a future asteroid Armageddon.The astronomers tracked a small non-threatening asteroid heading toward Earth before it became a "shooting star" something they had not done before. It blew up in the sky and scientists thought there would be no space rocks left to examine.

This was a meteorite that was not in the existing collection and a completely new material. For years, astronomers have been lobbying to send a robot probe to an asteroid, grab a chunk of it and return it to Earth for labs to analyze the material. Instead a piece of an asteroid dropped in their laps and the researchers were able to track where it came from and where it landed.

The asteroid, which mostly burned in the atmosphere 23 miles above the ground, is likely a leftover from when chunks of rock tried and failed to become a planet, about 4.5 billion years ago. It's a beautiful example of looking at an earlier stage of planet development that was arrested, halted.But it also serves as a lesson for the future if this asteroid's big brother comes hurtling toward Earth.

There are many different types of asteroids, all classified from afar based on color and light wavelengths. This type is called class F and turns out to be mostly porous and fragile. It's unlikely that a class F asteroid could be any danger to Earth, even if it's bigger, because of its porous makeup which would cause it to break up before hitting.It was full of metals, such as iron and nickel, and organics such as graphites. And most interesting is that it has "nanodiamonds." These diamonds are formed by collisions in space and high pressure and they are all over the rocks, making them glitter like geodes and were of small size.