Roma. Researchers from the Italian Institute of Astrophysics (Inas) have located new fragments of a meteorite that fell last week in the city of Matera (southern Italy) and that would be 45,000 million years old, as many as the solar system, according to the first results. of the investigations.
The meteorite, which fell at 300 kilometers per hour on the balcony of a councilor’s house, is one of three aerolites that hit Earth last week: on February 13 in France, on February 14 in Italy and on February 15 in Texas.
“The episode is part of a series of three events that took place on three successive days. This, counting that those registered since 1960 are regarding 40, is a truly exceptional event that will probably never be repeated, ”said Dario Barghin, an expert from the University of Turin (north), on Monday at a press conference reported by the media. local.
According to the researchers, the meteorite might be a chondrite from the main asteroid belt of the solar system and the fact that several of its fragments fell into a house without touching terrestrial soil prevented them from being contaminated and, therefore, the study of its chemical and mineral composition will have even more value.
The Italian meteorite, which popularly received the nickname of Valentine’s Day for impacting on February 14, has been baptized “Matera”, since the scientific community traditionally names them according to the city in which they fall.
In this case, the finding is exceptional since, as explained by Giovanni Pratese, from the University of Florence (center), it has been possible to observe in detail “all the parameters”, including “its trajectory and orbit”.
“The extraordinary thing regarding this intervention was the possibility of the ‘Prisma’ system working at full capacity, a kind of video surveillance of the atmosphere and meteorites, which in the Apulia region has some cameras that observed this great event”, pointed out, for his part, the mayor of Matera, Domenico Bennardi.
A day following falling in Italy, the US National Weather Service detected a fireball from the impact of another meteorite in South Texas, where some residents claimed to feel a jolt when its pieces hit the ground.
For his part, in France, an 18-year-old boy located a meteorite fragment weighing regarding 2 kilograms in the Normandy region (north of the country), along with smaller pieces.
