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- VANCOUVER (Reuters) - A meteorite
that dazzled viewers when it exploded in the atmosphere over the wilderness
of the Canada-Alaska border may soon provide scientists with a glimpse
into life before the Earth was created.
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- Charcoal-like fragments of the meteorite indicate it
is about 4.5 billion years old -- possibly predating the birth of the solar
system -- and make the discovery a ``cosmic bonanza,'' Canadian and U.S.
scientists said on Thursday.
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- ``It tells us what the initial materials were like that
which went into making up the Earth, the moon and the sun,'' Dr. Michael
Zolensky, a cosmic mineralogist at NASA's Johnson Space Center, said in
a written statement.
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- The meteorite exploded over the mountains between Carcross,
Yukon and Skagway, Alaska on the morning of January 18, shaking houses
and providing residents of the remote region with a dramatic light show.
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- The location of the explosion turned out to be ideal
for scientists, because the frozen conditions helped preserve organic materials
in the fragments that fell to the ground and were discovered by a resident
hiking in the wilderness.
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- The meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite, a rare type
of meteorite that contains many forms of carbon and organic materials,
basic building blocks of life, but is difficult to recover because it usually
breaks down on entry, scientists said.
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- ``This is probably the only time in my career this will
happen,'' Zolensky said.
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- The fragments -- lumps of crumbly rock with scorched
and pitted surfaces -- resemble partly used charcoal briquettes and still
smell of sulfur, said Dr. Richard Herd, Curator of National Collections
for the Geological Survey of Canada.
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- About 2 pounds of meteorite fragments have been recovered
so far. The finder, who has asked the scientist not to identify him, has
loaned the fragments to the Geological Survey and the University of Calgary.
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- Scientists have begun to conduct a series of tests on
the fragments and say some the value of the preserved condition of the
material is that it allows them to store some of it for future study.
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- ``You can tuck samples away for the future when new questions
come along that people can't even think up now,'' Zolensky said.
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