He was sent to study at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels.
During the expedition to Antarctica, which ended on January 16, an international group of researchers discovered one of the largest meteorites the continent
As written CNNthe discovered rare meteorite can be compared in size to a muskmelon, it weighs 7.7 kg.
The research team spent about a week and a half with a polar field guide, living in tents located on icy terrain. Although the mission was conventionally organized in “summer” (when daylight lasts 24 hours on the continent and the temperature fluctuates around minus 10 degrees Celsius), the conditions in which the researchers were were exhausting. But this test was worth it – they managed to find five meteorites. The most unique of them is now sent for study to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels.
Scientists explain that although meteorites fall to Earth uniformly and Antarctica is not a unique region in this sense, the pure white ice that covers the continent allows for easy observation.
“Meteorites themselves are too small to be detected from space using satellites. But this study used satellite measurements of surface temperature, surface tilt, surface velocity, ice thickness, etc. The data was fed into a machine learning algorithm to learn where the areas were most likely to be detected the cluster of meteorites is the highest,” says Maria Valdes, a participant in the expedition and a researcher at the University of Chicago.
The fall of meteorites to the Earth
Meteorites, bodies of cosmic origin that reach the Earth’s surface, mostly have a mass from a few grams to several tens of tons (the largest found weighs about 60 tons). According to scientists, about 5-6 tons of meteorites fall on Earth per day, or 2 thousand tons per year.
Late last year in the sky over Toronto video surveillance cameras recorded the fall of a meteorite, which caught fire in the atmosphere.
The researchers note that the more meteorite samples can be collected, the better scientists will be able to understand our solar system. For example, the meteorite that fell in England last year carried the same water as on Earth. This supports the theory that the key chemical components that ultimately contributed to the emergence of life were brought to our planet from space billions of years ago.