The Massalia asteroid family as the origin of ordinary L chondrites
- 1European Southern Observatory (ESO), Alonso de Cordova 3107, 1900 Casilla Vitacura, Santiago, Chile (mmarsset@eso.org)
- 2Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- 3Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, CNES LAM, Institut Origines, Marseille, France
- 4Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, V Holešovičkách 2, 18000 Prague, Czech Republic
- 5Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University, PO Box 6010, Flagstaff, AZ 86005, USA
- 6Lowell Observatory, 1400 W. Mars Hill Road, Flagstaff, AZ, 86001, USA
- 7Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
- 8Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS - Lagrange, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, CS 34229, 06304, Nice Cedex 4, France
- 9Faculty of Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, 234 Herzl St., Rehovot 7610001 Israel
Studies of micrometeorites in mid-Ordovician limestones and Earth’s impact craters indicate that our planet witnessed a massive infall of ordinary L chondrite material ~466 million years (My) ago (Heck et al. 2017, Schmieder & Kring 2020, Kenkmann 2021) that may have been at the origin of the first major mass extinction event (Schmitz et al. 2019). The breakup of a large asteroid in the main belt is the likely cause of this massive infall. In modern times, material originating from this breakup still dominates meteorite falls (>20% of all falls) (Swindle et al. 2014). We will present spectroscopic observations and dynamical evidence that the Massalia collisional family is the only plausible source of this catastrophic event and of the most abundant class of meteorites falling on Earth today.
How to cite: Marsset, M., Vernazza, P., Brož, M., Thomas, C., DeMeo, F., Burt, B., Binzel, R., Reddy, V., McGraw, A., Avdellidou, C., Carry, B., Slivan, S., and Polishook, D.: The Massalia asteroid family as the origin of ordinary L chondrites, Europlanet Science Congress 2024, Berlin, Germany, 8–13 Sep 2024, EPSC2024-14, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2024-14, 2024.
