What can we learn from meteorites? | B. Macke ( Vatican Observatory )

Meteorites are solar system objects that have fallen to the Earth. They provide us an abundant supply of material for study in the laboratory without the expense and complication of sample-return missions. They represent a wide range of types, places of origin, and histories, and through laboratory study they help develop our understanding of the formation and history of the solar system. Found embedded in certain meteorites are refractory inclusions that represent the earliest materials known to have solidified out of the solar nebula, 4.567 billion years ago. Some meteorites originated on known bodies such as the asteroid 4 Vesta, the Moon, or Mars, and help us interpret data from space missions to these objects. Nevertheless, the range of materials we can study is limited to those objects, mostly from the inner asteroid belt, that can survive entry to the Earth. The vast majority of the solar system is unrepresented in the meteorite population. I will speak generally about different types of meteorites that are known and what we have learned from them, and then discuss my own research studying density and porosity of meteorites and lunar materials.