Latest news with #meteorite
News.com.au
6 days ago
- General
- News.com.au
‘We found a meteorite!': Joy as rare space rocks discovered in WA outback
A team of scientists has uncovered two rare meteorite fragments on remote salt flats in outback Western Australia, days after a fireball lit up the skies above Perth and surrounding regions on Mother's Day. Researchers from Curtin University, part of the Desert Fireball Network, traced the meteorite's dramatic descent to Lake Hope, a barren expanse roughly seven hours east of Perth, using hi-tech weather modelling and an extensive network of sky-monitoring cameras. Planetary scientist Hadrien Devillepoix told 9News the team used the advanced weather modelling to predict how the meteorite would drift in the wind once it had slowed down enough. They then drove for hours through rugged terrain and dense bush before trekking on foot more than seven kilometres across the lake's salt flats. As the team trekked across the salt flats, 9News footage captured the moment team member Mia Walker raised her arms in triumph and shouted, 'We found a meteorite!' 'I started running and it was so special, I saw this hole in the lake and it only took, you know, just a little tug to pull it out,' Ms Walker said. 'It's very special, it's very exciting to get to find one of these.' Shortly after their initial discovery, the team struck gold again, uncovering a second fragment not far from the first. Among the finds was a significant chunk of space rock, one of the largest the team has recovered to date. 'Here's a piece of space rock that's been travelling the solar system for four and a half billion years,' Dr Devillepoix said. 'And now it's in our hands and we can use it for science, that's so exciting.' He said rain was forecast and the salt flats could be submerged 'in a matter of days.' 'That could have been lost forever,' he said.
ABC News
19-05-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Mother's Day meteorite site discovered by WA police officer
Dr Eleanor Sansom from the Australian Desert Fireball Network says scientists are planning an expedition to recover more meteorite fragments.
ABC News
18-05-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Meteorite that lit up WA's skies found by police officer, Desert Fireball Network
A country police officer has won the race to recover a meteorite that lit up the skies over southern Western Australia. It's believed the astronomical anomaly dubbed the Mother's Day Meteorite entered the atmosphere over the Central Wheatbelt about 6am on May 11, travelling south. A team of scientists from Curtin University's Desert Fireball Network (DFN), who track meteors across Australia, mapped its trajectory, estimating the impact point just south of the Breakaways, 460 kilometres east of Perth in the state's Goldfields. DFN director Eleanor Sansom and her team was in the sky over the crash site when the discovery was made. "I wasn't quite sure we would see anything, but we pretty quickly came across a few exciting suspects," she said. "We circled around, and there were two or three spots on the lake that we were pretty sure were meteorites in the lake. "Then we saw someone out on one of the lakes, scouting around, and we thought, 'Oh, wow, someone has actually gone out to search.' "That's the person who found one yesterday." The man on the ground was Ravensthorpe police officer and amateur meteorite hunter Marcus Scott. Mr Scott, who has found dozens of meteorites on the Nullarbor, was thrilled when he learnt the meteorite may have fallen in his backyard. After a two-hour drive and scramble through dense bush, Mr Scott reached the salt lake and quickly found what he was looking for. "It's a very easy place to find a meteorite, especially if it's recent, like this one, only being seven days since it fell," he said. "The weather has been pretty good out there, so you're going to see the impact on the salt lake and it will stand out. "This was in an open area and quite easy to spot, but the kangaroo prints and the emu prints from a distance also look like a meteorite impact. "So you can find yourself wasting a lot of time chasing after them." Mr Scott estimated the space rock to be about the size of a tennis ball, weighing about 450 grams. And while not a thing of beauty, he said the Mother's Day Meteorite was one of his most special finds. "There are some very nice meteorites that land on Earth, but I wouldn't rank this as a thing of beauty. "It's more of a thing of interest. "It's only been there for seven days compared to thousands of years, and that makes it a bit more special. While other meteorites he has found have "terrestrial weathering", this one looks "a lot more like what a meteorite should look like". "So I would say it's definitely something worth finding," Mr Scott said. The discovery of the first sample has not stopped Dr Sansom and her team, whose aerial reconnaissance had indicated other samples still to be recovered. "We spotted three potential sites and [Mr Scott's rock] was one of them, then there are probably two more," she said. "When it came through [the atmosphere] there were lots of bright flashes, and every time there's a bright flash, that means the rocks fragmented. "This is going to have quite a lot of little pieces of material … what we call a strewn field. "I think this one's going to be quite a special rock, and if it is, it will be incredible to get as much of it as we can."
BBC News
15-05-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Natural History Museum visitors to touch parts of moon and Mars
Visitors to London's Natural History Museum will be able to touch a piece of the moon and the planet Mars at a new museum is opening its first display dedicated to space exploration, with more than 60 objects on view - including a parachute NASA used to practice transporting an asteroid to Earth. Visitors can see fragments of an asteroid and even smell pods that recreate the scents of Caroline Smith, lead scientist on the exhibition, said there was "more evidence than ever before" that life could exist beyond Earth. She said the latest findings from space missions and data held in the museum's meteorite collection have contributed to their understanding."We are over the moon to share what we know so far about the search for life in space," she Could Life Exist Beyond Earth? opens on Friday, with tickets costing up to £16.50.
