Goderis cited the 2022 DART mission, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, in which NASA sent a spacecraft to intentionally knock an asteroid off its course. Knowing how different types of asteroids interact with the physical forces around them would be critical for an effective planetary defense operation.

“The carbonaceous chondrite will react completely differently from an ordinary chondrite — it’s much more porous, it’s much more light and it will absorb much more of an impact if you send an object towards it. So, we need to learn about this to have a corresponding response,” Goderis said.

Dr. Ed Young, a professor of cosmochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved with the study, agreed with the findings.

He said the discovery “adds richness to our understanding of what happened” when the dinosaurs went extinct. Young noted that the researchers’ assessment that the asteroid was a carbonaceous chondrite “is a robust conclusion.”

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