Meteorites

A team of scientists from Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), the United States and Japan has found a unique group of ancient lunar basaltic meteorites, suggesting a new scenario for the origin of lunar basalts, according to ISRO. PRL, which is a unit of the Department of Space, carries out fundamental research in select areas of physics, space and atmospheric sciences, astronomy, astrophysics and solar physics, and planetary and geo-Sciences. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) issued a statement on Thursday saying the Moon's dark regions that are visible to the naked eye, known as the 'mare', are remnants of a violent history of the Solar System. There are no records, though, of these frenzied events on Earth. The Moon, having changed very little over billions of years, provides us a window to ponder over the past. The large mare regions on the near side of the Moon, that can be seen from Earth, mainly consists of basalts comprising volcanic rocks, it ...

About 10% of meteorites are pure iron. These form through a multi-step process in which a large molten asteroid has enough gravity to cause iron to sink to its center