SETI Institute @setiinstitute@mastodon.social
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PRESS RELEASE: seti.org/press-release/meteori

Where do meteorites of different types come from? Astronomers trace the impact orbit of observed meteorite falls to several previously unidentified source regions in the asteroid belt.

“This has been a decade-long detective story, with each recorded meteorite fall providing a new clue,” said Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. “We now have the first outlines of a geologic map of the asteroid belt.”

SETI Institute logo. Graph with Inclination in degrees on the y-axis and Proper Semi-Major Axis in astronomical units on the x-axis. Geologic map of the asteroid belt. Circles identify the asteroid families from which our meteorites originate and letters mark the corresponding meteorite type. The horizontal axis ranges from short orbits moving just inside the asteroid belt (left) to longer orbits just outside (right). The vertical axis shows how much the asteroid orbits are tilted relative to the plane of the planets. Blue lines are the delivery resonances. Text: Where do meteorites of different types come from? Astronomers trace the impact orbit of observed meteorite falls to several previously unidentified regions in the asteroid belt.
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