Nature Communications (Apr 2018)

A large planetary body inferred from diamond inclusions in a ureilite meteorite

  • Farhang Nabiei,
  • James Badro,
  • Teresa Dennenwaldt,
  • Emad Oveisi,
  • Marco Cantoni,
  • Cécile Hébert,
  • Ahmed El Goresy,
  • Jean-Alix Barrat,
  • Philippe Gillet

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03808-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 6

Abstract

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Ureilites are a type of meteorite that are believed to be derived from a parent body that was impacted in the early solar system. Here, the authors analyse inclusions within diamonds from a ureilite meteorite and find that they must have formed at above 20 GPa suggesting the parent body was Mercury- to Mars-sized.