Meteorites: messengers from the outer space

Abstract

Tens of millions of meteoroids, solid bodies from the outer space, enter the Earth's atmosphere each year. They are pieces of stone, iron or stony-iron conglomerates, ranging in mass from fractions of a gram to hundreds of kilograms. Those that survive the passage through the atmosphere and fall to Earth are called meteorites. Meteorites are the most ancient and primitive rocks as old as the Solar system. The study of these enigmatic objects intrigued scientists since ancient times, not only about their place of origin but also about the conditions that prevailed there and gave rise to their characteristic chemical and mineralogical composition and structures. These primitive rocks are messengers from the outer space that carry with them precious secrets about the formation of the Solar system, depends on us to reveal them. In this paper a review of the work done in the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas (CBPF/MCT), applying the Mossbauer spectroscopy to the study of the meteoritic Fe-Ni system will be reported.