Hundreds of meteorites from shattered asteroids bombard Earth every year. Some of them come from small planet-like objects that formed larger planets when our solar system was young, about 4.5 billion years ago. Researchers hope that these remnants could shed light on that time.
The Lost Meteorites of Antarctica expedition from Britain has headed to the ice-capped continent to scan a remote area in search for rare rocks that could give them chemical and physical clues about what it was like when our solar system was young.
The scientific party from the University of Manchester will search for one specific type of space “travellers” consisting of so-called meteoritic iron (which is an iron-nickel alloy). These space rocks are thought to have broken off small planet-like objects that formed larger planets billions of years ago and are considered hard to find, as they make up only 5% of meteorites falling to Earth each year. Their qualities can also be changed due to rain and other natural circumstances.
However, this is no easy task, as meteorites are rarely discovered in Antarctica. As the researchers suggest, this can be explained by the high temperatures of these meteorites, which makes it easy for them to go through the ice. Metal detectors are hoped will do the trick and help overcome this difficulty.
However, this would not be an ordinary metal detector like those often seen on beaches around the world. Snowmobiles are set to tow two specially designed wide-array devices with five-metre-wide detectors. They are launching their search operation near the Shackleton Range of mountains, southeast of the Weddell Sea – in an area that is 750 km from the nearest base.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
