[MUSIC] A very beautiful example of a meteorite

from the middle core boundary in the differentiated asteroid

is this slice up here. It is a piece of the Imilac meteorite, which was found in
the Atacama
desert in Chile in 1822. It's composed of about 50% metal,
and the silicate mineral olivine. We put some light behind it, so you can see th
at the olivine
crystals are transparent. This is somewhat similar to the situation
about 3000 kilometers below my feet, the Earth also has a core mantle boundary,
and although the asteroid from which this one came was much smaller
than the Earth so conditions are quite different. This is the best analogue we h
ave to
the core-mantle boundary on the Earth. And as I said, these meteorites
are really quite beautiful. We also, often refer to pallasites
as the jewels of meteorites. >> [MUSIC]