Sunday, October 6, 2013

Blog #2

Article #3 explains the relationship between specific meteorites from the asteroid Vesta and our early universe. To do this, scientists studied specific meteorites called diogenites, whose cores, mantles, and crusts are very similar to that of Earth. Both forming about 4.6 billion years ago in a close vicinity, the diogenites and Earth have very similar chemical compositions, which from the age of the meteorites and their formation has told us when the different layers of Earth formed by measuring the changing amounts of siderophile. From this data, scientists have been able to estimate that the Earth's accretion and differentiation phase lasted about 2-3 million years. This article supports the importance of asteroids and meteorites in our mission to learn more about the universe and our own planet.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120722135204.htm

1 comment:

  1. You mentioned Vesta in your opening sentence, yet never quite got around to explaining that relationship in your paragraph. What a tease! Also, I think you have a small error in that the meteorites don't have a core, mantle, and crust, those terms are referring to Earth. Finally, it would be nice to define the term siderophile for your classmates. This is not a term common to daily conversation or even our Earth Science class!

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