In Pennsylvania, a meteorite landed in a carton of ice cream. Brown University helped ID the out-of-this-world topping.
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Before long, a team of geologists and meteorite experts formed to take a look and verify what exactly they were looking at – including professor Dan Ibarra and graduate student Riley Havel, from Brown University.
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'At Brown University's Ibarra Lab, Ibarra, Havel, and visiting student Jiquan Chen prepared the sample for advanced isotopic analysis,' university officials said in a statement. 'Their primary focus was measuring the rock's triple oxygen isotope composition— an essential method for distinguishing meteorites from terrestrial rocks.'
Meteorites are distinct from Earth rocks as they contain 'oxygen isotope ratios that reflect their formation in space, often dating back to the early solar system,' according to the university.
The measurements allowed the team to confirm the rock was a meteorite, informally referred to as the 'Ice Cream Drop,' school officials said.
'This work paves the way for official classification in the Meteoritical Bulletin, ensuring that the sample becomes part of the global scientific record,' the university said.
Havel said there is a particular importance in identifying meteorites from 'meteor-wrongs.'
'Meteorites have unique scientific value and can be used to answer questions about our solar system in ways that many terrestrial rocks cannot,' Havel said in a statement.
The research was recently detailed in Pennsylvania Geology Magazine, which is published by the state's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
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'We tried to maintain an open mind when the owner of the main mass brought it to us for examination after being rebuffed by others,' Robert C. Smith II and John H. Barnes, retired from the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, and James T. Herbstritt, of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, wrote in the magazine. 'We do not control custody of the main mass of this specimen, but we hope that our efforts on the material that was made available to us will lead to additional research of this worthy specimen by others.
'To be sure, observed meteorite falls are rare, but meteorites can and do land in Pennsylvania!,' they added.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at
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