Need to find a meteorite? Call your fireball astronomers!

William Atkins
Friday, 18 September 2009 20:22

Science - Space

The research team, lead by Professor Phil Bland (Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London), were called detectives in the CSIRO article because of their remarkable ability to find this tiny meteorite, its “incredibly rare” orbit, and its parent asteroid.

The CSIRO article states, “Meteorites discovered with known orbits are incredibly rare, so the achievement is a remarkable breakthrough in planetary science. The ability to track meteorites back to their asteroid home also means it is an incredibly cheap way of sampling that asteroid, rather than conducting an expensive space mission.”

Dr. Rob Hough, a CSIRO Exploration and Mining scientist (Perth, Western Australia) and one of the authors of the Science paper, stated that the Nullarbor Plain contains white limestone rocks that helps in finding a blackened meteorite.

Dr. Hough states, “So a dark meteorite on the white surface is easier to find, however it’s very tiny, so the discovery is still really quite amazing. This particular meteorite is also very interesting because of its rarity. It is an achondrite – a basalt - with a composition that suggest an asteroid from the inner asteroid belt.” [CSIRO]

Although finding meteorites is a difficult job at best, Dr Hough said that their “all sky camera” network has found many of them in the past.

He adds, “The Plain is a very difficult place to have technology like the cameras and the fieldwork to find the meteorite is not trivial. “The logistics are a really important aspect of a project like this and it takes a lot of planning to make it work.”

The discovery of the meteorite, its orbit, and its former parent asteroid helps astronomers unravel the evolution of the solar system. Meteorites are one of the few remaining objects in the solar system that still exist in the same form as they did when the solar system first formed about 4.6 billion years ago.

By studying meteorites, astronomers learn more about how the solar system formed and evolved.

Western Australia Chief Scientist Professor Lyn Beazley comments on the discovery: "It will complement Western Australia’s radio astronomy research and, in particular, Australia's commitment to the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope. This also represents an extraordinary collaborative effort between CSIRO, the Western Australian Museum and academics from the UK and takes advantage of the unique features of Western Australia, which allows the tracking, locating and collecting of rare meteorite material."

Additional information is found on the RedOrbit.com article “Rare Meteorite Found With New Camera Network In Australian Desert.”