Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2026
Just as the purloined letter in Edgar Allan Poe's celebrated detective story was hidden in plain sight, so too can ordinary chondrites hold vital clues to the nature of the Solar System. Even highly weathered equilibrated samples, seemingly unworthy of a second look, may bear the markings of thermal metamorphism, shock metamorphism, and post-shock annealing. To study the heavens, we need only keep our eyes open; the rocks beneath our feet may conceal the secrets of the cosmos.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.