![]() The meteorites cooled with green rock crystals called olivine suspended in iron, and are incredibly shiny. My absolute favourites are the stony iron meteorites, which come from the coremantle boundary. The composition of meteorites is dependent on where in the protoplanets they came from – stony meteorites from the crust or mantle of planets and iron meteorites from the metallic core. These are therefore the oldest objects in the Sedgwick Museum – at 4.6 billion years old, they are probably slightly older than the Earth itself. Radiometric dating of specimens such as these provided the first conclusive proof of the age of the Earth and the Solar System. These fragments drift through space, and occasionally one of them collides with the Earth. Meteorites are the remnant fragments of proto-planets which were smashed to pieces right at the beginning of the Solar System, when the planets were forming. The objects, and the science that has been done using them, absolutely fascinated me. We were shown meteorites in one of the first practical sessions of the year. As an undergraduate natural science student at Cambridge I was unsure at the start of my second year which subject to specialise in. While the objects that immediately stand out in the Sedgwick Museum are the large dinosaurs, my favourite specimen is much smaller, although far more out of this world.
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