SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The rock that has gone down in history as the “Cuba meteorite,” which has a weight of approximately 1.3 kg, is not actually a meteorite, as researchers have concluded in recent days.
The metallic rock is part of the exhibition at the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) in Madrid and was included in the collection in 1871.
To the surprise of those who thought it had an extraterrestrial origin, the fragment could not be further from that hypothesis, since it is a piece of steel or metallurgical foundry iron, known as industrial slag.
The conclusion followed an investigation by Aurelio Nieto, curator of the Geology collection at the MNCN, together with the researcher from the University of Havana, Yasmani Ceballos-Izquierdo, and Johanset Orihuela, from the Florida International University.
The article “From meteorite to false meteorite: investigating a controversial specimen from Cuba”, published in the Mexican Journal of Geological Sciences states that the “Cuba” meteorite, whose mass type is cataloged as MNCN nº 17294 in the museum, is of terrestrial nature.
“It has long been considered an official meteorite, included in the online database of the Meteoritical Society. However, the provenance and nature of this metallic object remain uncertain due to inconsistencies in its weight, density, hardness, drop location, and chemical composition. “This article argues that this specimen is not a meteorite by examining its chemical and textural properties with modern analytical techniques and considering alternative explanations for its origin,” the text summary states.
To reach the conclusion, they applied scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, which helped confirm the terrestrial nature of the specimen. These results were compared with those of a specimen assumed to be a meteorite fragment, and with those of the other two masses labeled “Cuba” in other museum collections.
The results of new laboratory studies carried out in the Center for Advanced Studies of Cuba, commissioned by the Institute of Geophysics and Astronomy (IGA), have corroborated that the number of meteorites fallen on the Island amounts to a total of five, from an initial list supposedly of ten.
Doctor in Geographic Sciences Efrén Jaimez Salgado, assistant researcher at the IGA, told the official newspaper Granma that, after the institutional update of that record, the confirmed cases are five: the litito type of Las Canas, in the current territory of Artemisa, October 1844; the Bacuranao siderolith, in August 1974; the Litito of Santa Isabel de las Lajas, Cienfuegos, seen falling on June 10, 1994; Condrito l6, in Viñales, seen falling on the 1st. February 2019 and Condrito l5, Ramón de las Yaguas, Santiago de Cuba, reported on July 10, 2021.
2024-04-27 07:29:03
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