Radar-Enabled Recovery of the Sutter’s Mill Meteorite, a Carbonaceous Chondrite Regolith Breccia

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1227163
• Publication Date: 2012-12-20T16:44:51Z
• Authors: Peter Jenniskens; Marc D. Fries; Qing-Zhu Yin; Michael Zolensky; Alexander N. Krot; Scott A. Sandford; Derek Sears; Robert Beauford; Denton S. Ebel; Jon M. Friedrich; Kazuhide Nagashima; Josh Wimpenny; Akane Yamakawa; Kunihiko Nishiizumi; Yasunori Hamajima; Marc W. Caffee; Kees C. Welten; Matthias Laubenstein; Andrew M. Davis; Steven B. Simon; Philipp R. Heck; Edward D. Young; Issaku E. Kohl; Mark H. Thiemens; Morgan H. Nunn; Takashi Mikouchi; Kenji Hagiya; Kazumasa Ohsumi; Thomas A. Cahill; Jonathan A. Lawton; David Barnes; Andrew Steele; Pierre Rochette; Kenneth L. Verosub; Jérôme Gattacceca; George Cooper; Daniel P. Glavin; Aaron S. Burton; Jason P. Dworkin; Jamie E. Elsila; Sandra Pizzarello; Ryan Ogliore; Phillipe Schmitt-...; Mourad Harir; Norbert Hertkorn; Alexander Verchovsky; Monica Grady; Keisuke Nagao; Ryuji Okazaki; Hiroyuki Takechi; Takahiro Hiroi; Ken Smith; Elizabeth A. Silber; Peter G. Brown; Jim Albers; Doug Klotz; Mike Hankey; Robert Matson; Jeffrey A. Fries; Richard J. Walker; Igor Puchtel; Cin-Ty A. Lee; Monica E. Erdman; Gary R. Eppich; Sarah Roeske; Zelimir Gabelica; Michael Lerche; Michel Nuevo; Beverly Girten; Simon P. Worden
• Keywords: 13. Climate action; 0103 physical sciences; 01 natural sciences

The Meteor That Fell to Earth

In April 2012, a meteor was witnessed over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.

Jenniskens et al.

(p. 1583 ) used a combination of photographic and video images of the fireball coupled with Doppler weather radar images to facilitate the rapid recovery of meteorite fragments. A comprehensive analysis of some of these fragments shows that the Sutter's Mill meteorite represents a new type of carbonaceous chondrite, a rare and primitive class of meteorites that contain clues to the origin and evolution of primitive materials in the solar system. The unexpected and complex nature of the fragments suggests that the surfaces of C-class asteroids, the presumed parent bodies of carbonaceous chondrites, are more complex than previously assumed.