Searching for Meteorites in Antarctica
Explanation:
Where is the best place on Earth to find
meteorites?
Although
meteors fall all over the world,
they usually just sink to the bottom of an
ocean, are buried by shifting terrain,
or are easily confused with
terrestrial rocks.
At the bottom of the Earth, however, in East
Antarctica, huge sheets of
blue ice remain pure and barren.
When traversing such a sheet, a dark rock will
stick out.
These rocks have a high probability of being
true meteorites -- likely pieces of another world.
An explosion or impact might have catapulted these
meteorites from the
Moon,
Mars,
or even an
asteroid,
yielding valuable information about these distant worlds
and our early
Solar System.
Small teams of
snowmobiling explorers so far have found thousands.
Pictured above, ice-trekkers search a field 25-kilometers in front of
Otway Massif in the
Transantarctic Mountain Range during the
Antarctic summer of 1995-1996.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
