Researchers want to peer inside crevices and mineral-rich deposits in meteorites to analyze the minerals, metals and water the rocky bodies deliver to our planet and uncover new clues on the early history of planet formation.
Meteorite GRA 06100 depicts overlay of X-ray and neutron imaging. Red denotes iron-rich compounds; blue denotes hydrogenated compounds, including water.US-based researchers have combined two complementary techniques—X-ray imaging and neutron imaging—to peer inside crevices and mineral-rich deposits inside meteorites.
Neither imaging technique significantly harms or alters meteorites, unlike other methods of analyzing the chemical composition of the rocks, which require cutting thin slices of the meteorites. Although each imaging method has been used separately in the past, the team is among the first to use the two techniques simultaneously to create X-ray and neutron-beam snapshots.
To create three-dimensional views of the meteorites, the researchers used the X-ray and neutron beams to image cross-sections of the rocks. Individual images of different cross sections were then combined to create a 3D image, a technique known as tomography or CT scan. Although water accounts for 70% of earth’s surface, exactly how the substance arrived on our planet remains the subject of a longstanding debate. Some planetary scientists suggest that meteorites and comets—icy relics from the frigid, outer solar system—delivered the water, along with the building blocks of proteins essential for life, after our planet’s core had formed. Others suggest that earth acquired the water during its formation 4.
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