A meteorite that fell near Berlin on Jan. 21 was found be an aubrite, a rare class with unknown origins that some scientists argue may be pieces of the planet Mercury.Credit...Peter Jenniskens/The SETI Institute
The New York Times has a story about a meteorite with mysterious origins. A little after midnight on January 21st, 2024, a small meteor struck the Earth at Ribbeck, a village just outside Berlin, Germany. There was no damage. The meteor, probably less than three feet in diameter, was first spotted by Krisztián Sárneczky, a Hungarian astronomer, three hours before it hit Earth’s atmosphere. By Thursday, searchers had located 20 fragments.
Researchers at the Natural History Museum in Berlin analyzed the minerals in the fragments using an electron microprobe. That revealed that the rocks appeared to be aubrites. It was the first time such meteorites had been collected in a tracked fall.
The source of aubrites, named after the French town of Aubres near where they were first found, remains mysterious, as their composition does not match other known sources of meteorites in the solar system. Some research has suggested they are fragments of the planet Mercury, but not all scientists support that origin story.
If aubrites came directly from Mercury, 2024 BX1 should have originated in the inner solar system. However, tracing back its path, it appears that the asteroid’s initial orbit was much wider and outside Earth’s orbit.
