This Meteorite that crashed in Assam holds secrets to the origin of life on Earth

Asteroids out in space and meteorites that have crashed on Earth have been a big source of information for scientists to understand how life originated on Earth. The OSIRIS-REx mission to collect a sample from Asteroid Bennu and bring it back to Earth is a perfect example, as scientists aim to study the origins of life on Earth. Now in the latest development, a meteorite named Kamargaon that crashed in Kamargaon town in the Golaghat district of Assam, India around seven years ago, is said to hold secrets of the origin of life. It is the chemical composition of the meteorite which hints that it all began in the core of stars.

A study by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has claimed that the researchers have found some rare vesicular olivine and pyroxene in minerals for the first time in a meteorite from the outer solar system. The study was joined by researchers from Hiroshima University, Japan, and Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and it has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets.

Before this study, several other studies have shown that volatile elements such as oxygen, carbon, sodium, manganese, and sulfur are vital elements for life. Hence, tracing the presence of these elements and any other space bodies is important as it can narrate the story of Earthlings.

About Kamargaon meteorite

This meteorite which crashed in Assam village is said to come from the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter, which contains most of the asteroids. As per the study, the space rock was broken after crashing against another asteroid. The collision scattered the smaller pieces of the asteroid and some of these mini space rocks fell on the surface of the Earth. The Kamargaon meteorite came from a massive asteroid over 6.4 kilometers in size, the study revealed.