Muonionalusta Meteorite MMS01

Muonionalusta Meteorite Geological Description:
Muonionalusta meteorites are composed of an iron-nickel alloy and are also one of the few meteorites to contain stishovite an extremely rare form of shocked quartz. The Muonionalusta meteorite found in Sweden in 1906 is our oldest discovered meteorite entering our atmosphere an estimated 800,000 to 1 million years ago. It exploded high in the atmosphere showering fragments over a large region of northern Scandinavia. Prior to this, the meteorite had travelled through space for over four billion years before it fell to earth. It is derived from the core of an extinct planet that was blown apart billions of years ago during the formation of our solar system. The beautiful crystalline patterns within these meteorites are known as Widmanstatten patterns, and are unique to meteorites. These patterns can only form over millions of years of cooling. It has been estimated that it took about 1000 years for these molten pieces of planetary core to cool by just 1 degree Celsius!