• Question: Has there been a discovery of a material that came in a asteroid

    Asked by JJD to Rob, Martin, Martin, James, Elizabeth on 16 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by Lee.
    • Photo: Robert Woolfson

      Robert Woolfson answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      Yea, one of the ways we can tell if an asteroid has hit the earth somewhere is that we find elements and materials that are not usually found on earth. It’s a pretty useful way of figuring out whether something is actually from space.

    • Photo: James Coombs OBrien

      James Coombs OBrien answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      Yes definitely!

      Quite a few people believe that life started on earth when an asteroid hit the earth billions of years ago with some very special materials on it called amino acids. After many many years these materials slowly joined together to make proteins when many years later led to the first life on earth. But we don’t know this for sure, its just an idea.

      There is an interesting idea in science at the moment that we could mine asteroids for metals. A few metals are running out on earth as we use them up and some people think I would be a good idea to mine asteroids for their metals instead!

      Thanks!

    • Photo: Elizabeth Cooper

      Elizabeth Cooper answered on 17 Mar 2015:

      Yes asteroids hit Earth quite often and scientists test the asteroid rock to see what is made of.

      Asteroids which have come from near the sun are mainly made of carbon. There are also metallic asteroids which are mainly made up of iron.

Comments