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A meteorite that hit the town of Murchison, Australia, hasn't quit giving up its secrets. The Murchison meteorite is one of the most studied space rocks because many pieces were recovered after it was seen breaking up as it fell through the atmosphere in 1969. Approximately 100 kg of the carbonaceous chondrite was recovered. Carbonaceous chondrites are extremely important to scientists as they were formed from material that existed in the solar system's planet-forming disk of gas and dust. They are, quite literally, time capsules holding onto a 4 billion year old record of the birth of our solar system....

Water found in meteorite Tiny bubbles are caught in the water Scientists have made the first discovery of liquid water in a meteorite. The space rock was recovered by a group of boys in a small Texas town who saw it fall out of the sky in 1998. Specimens taken to Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston were subjected to tests by Michael Zolensky and his colleagues. When they cracked open the rock they found tiny, purple spots of halite - crystals of sodium chloride, or table salt - along with minute amounts of briny water. Others who have looked...

Probe to 'look inside' asteroids By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff in Paris, France Studies of asteroids would aid Earth-protection strategies A new space mission concept unveiled at a Paris conference aims to look inside asteroids to reveal how they are made. Deep Interior would use radar to probe the origin and evolution of two near-Earth objects less than 1km across. The mission, which could launch some time later this decade, would also give clues to how the planets evolved. The perceived threat of asteroids colliding with our planet has renewed interest in space missions to understand these...