Amazing planetary discovery: This is the first time ever that scientists find evidences showing that a comet struck Earth. And this apocalyptic event happened about 28 Mio years ago.
In their study, they analyzed a small, very unusual stone, named “Hypatia”, found in the area of southwest Egypt where an extreme surface heating event produced the Libyan Desert Glass 28.5 million years ago. The stone is described as angular, black, shiny, extremely hard and intensely fractured. Here a video on Lybian desert silica glass:
The chemical and physical results suggest:
[…] that this rock fragment – the Hypatia stone – is a remnant of a cometary nucleus fragment that impacted after incorporating gases from the atmosphere. Its co-occurrence with Libyan Desert Glass suggests that this fragment could have been part of a bolide that broke up and exploded in the airburst that formed the Glass. Its extraordinary preservation would be due to its shock-transformation into a weathering-resistant assemblage. […]
The study is set for publication in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
I believe there is something strange about this research. If it was a breathtaking discovery, Science or Nature would have had accepted it! And I am quite sure they tried to submit their paper there. But anyway, I hope it will help us to understand the formation of our solar system as I did my PhD in this field (cosmochemistry)!
Find more news about meteor, fireball and comets here!
