The Field Museum of Natural History announced on Wednesday that five institutions will share parts of the rare meteorite which exploded over California in April 2012. The administration of the museum believes that doing so will help preserve the artifacts for future studies.
The meteorite weighing 205 grams will be shared by The Field Museum in Chicago; the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington; the American Museum of Natural History in New York; Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz.; and the University of California-Davis.
Scientists have used a CT scan to identify the age and chemical composition of the meteorite. The scan revealed that the rock may be between 4 to 5 billion years old-- almost as old as the solar system.
The Smithsonians believe that it could tell a lot about the birth of the universe but to date, scientists don't have the tools yet to study these rare pieces of meteorite. Field Museum curator Philipp Heck said in his announcement "future generations of scientists who will be armed with analytical tools which we can only dream of today" can use these pieces someday.
The rare meteorite, dubbed as Sutter's Mill Meteorite, entered Earth's atmosphere in April 22, 2012 and may be as huge as a minivan based on the loud explosive sound it generated. It was witnessed over Sacramento, Calif. , Las Vegas, and a few northern parts of Nevada at 7:51 a.m EDT. Scientists are still working to gather all the fragments of the meteorite and have collected 75 as of November 2012. he largest is the 205-gram fragment which will be cut shared by five institutions.
The meteorite fragment was previously owned by private collector Robert Haag who surrendered it to director of Arizona State University's Center for Meteorite Studies Meenakshi Wadhwa. It was Wahdwa who thought of sharing it to five institutions.
