2023-12-26 00:53:35
On June 27, 1931, the inhabitants of Tatahouine (Tunisia) watched in astonishment the explosion of a fireball and the shower of hundreds of meteorite fragments. The city later became one of the main filming locations for the Star Wars saga. The desert climate and traditional towns served as inspiration for director George Lucas, who named the fictional planet of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader “Tatooine.”
Obviously, the mysterious meteorite of 1931, a rare type of achondrite (a meteorite that has undergone fusion) known as diogenite, is not a fragment of Skywalker’s home planet. But it received the same name from the city of Tatahouine. Now, a recent study has revealed important data about the origin of the meteorite and the beginnings of the solar system.
George Lucas filmed several scenes in the saga of Star Wars in Tatahouine. Between them scenes Of the movies Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) y Episode 2: Attack of the Clones (2002).
When Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker, recalled filming in Tunisia in a conversation with Empire Magazine said:
“If you could get into your own mind, ignore the team and look at the horizon, you really felt transported to another world.”
Tatahouine, Tunisia. wikipedia, CC BY-SA
Composition and origin
The diogenites, which owe their name to the Greek philosopher Diogenes, are igneous meteorites, that is, they come from rocks that have solidified from lava or magma. They formed deep within an asteroid and cooled slowly, leading to the formation of relatively large crystals.
Tatahouine is no exception, containing crystals up to 5 millimeters with black veins running through the sample in its entirety. The black veins are called impact fusion veins and are the result of high temperatures and pressures caused by the collision of a projectile against the surface of the meteorite body.
The presence of these veins, together with the structure of the pyroxene grains (minerals containing calcium, magnesium, iron and aluminum), suggest that the sample has experienced pressures of up to 25 gigapascals (GPa) of pressure. To put it in perspective, the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of our ocean, is only 0.1 GPa. So we can affirm that this sample has suffered a fairly strong impact.
When evaluating the spectrum (light reflected from the surface) of the meteorites and compare it with that of asteroids and planets in our solar system, it has been suggested that the diogenites, including Tatahouine, come from the second largest asteroid in our asteroid belt, known as (4) Vesta.
This asteroid has interesting and exciting information about the beginnings of the solar system. Many of Vesta’s meteorites are old, about ~4 billion years old. years. Therefore, they offer a window into past events in the early solar system that we cannot evaluate here on Earth.
A violent past
The recent study investigated 18 diogenites, including Tatahouine, all from Vesta. The authors used techniques of radiometric dating by argon-argon age to determine the age of meteorites. They are based on observing two different isotopes, that is, versions of elements whose nuclei have more or fewer particles called neutrons. A certain isotope of argon in samples is known to increase with age at a known rate, which helps scientists estimate the age of a sample by comparing the ratio between two different isotopes.
The team also evaluated the deformation caused by the collisions, called impact events, using a type of electron microscope technique called electron backscatter diffraction.
Seven of the diogenites analyzed. F. Jourdan et al, CC BY-SA
By combining age-dating and microscope techniques, the authors were able to trace the timing of impacts on Vesta and the early solar system. The study suggests that Vesta experienced continuous impacts until 3.4 billion years ago, when a catastrophic one occurred.
This catastrophic event, possibly the collision of another asteroid, resulted in the formation of multiple smaller asteroids known as “chatting”. Unraveling large-scale impacts like this reveals the hostile nature of the early solar system.
In the last 50 to 60 million years, these smaller bodies suffered other collisions that caused material to reach Earth, such as the Tunisian fireball.
Ultimately, this work highlights the importance of researching meteorites: their impacts have played a critical role in the evolution of asteroids in our solar system.
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