• justgohomealready@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Listen - the meteors that fall on earth every day are usually in an orbit similar to that of the earth, at more or less the same velocity. Can you picture that? There’s dust flying around with the earth, at more or less the same speed, and that dust sometimes falls into our atmosphere and lands on someone’s garden. That the normal situation.

    This specific object came at the earth two times faster than any star around the solar system is moving. It crashed at the earth moving faster than everything else around us - and pieces of it survived the impact with the atmosphere!

    That’s why those spherules are special - regular meteors are made from iron and, if they entered the atmosphere at that speed, they would have competely vaporized. This one impacted the ocean, pieces of it were found, and it turns out it is made of some alloy we’d never seen before (and that’s why pieces of it survived, because it’s not iron like regular meteors).

    Do you understand now the significance? I would recommend you read the article before replying again.