Two scientists from the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London are blogging their way across Western Australia as they search for meteorites, and it’s a good read.
Museum meteorite curator Caroline Smith and meteorite researcher Gretchen Benedix arrived in Australia on September 26, and arming themselves with supplies set out on October 11 into the Nullarbor Desert, where they expect to find plenty of meteorites. They're keeping an online diary on the NHM website which you can read at piclib.nhm.ac.uk/meteorite-blog
The meteorite collecting trip will also involve checking on the Desert Fireball Network – a network of cameras in the Nullarbor that observes meteorite fireballs and calculates where they fall. Recordings of meteorite falls are extremely rare, with fewer than ten of the 32,000 known meteorites on Earth having had their falls captured on camera.
The accessible blog lets readers know about the scientists' exciting trip
The blog already features an incredible image taken by one of the network cameras of a fireball shooting across the sky in the middle of an electrical storm. Caroline, Gretchen and two colleagues from Imperial College, London, and the Western Australian Museum, Perth, will make sure the cameras are all in good working order.
On the meteorite hunting side of things, there has already been some success. Caroline found one within 30km of the group’s first camp. And it’s no easy task spotting them amid all the local rocks. Kektites – pieces of glass from impactors that hit the earth and send molten earth rock all the way into space, only for it to fall back down because of gravity – also crop up quite a bit.
The blog gives a great insight into Caroline and Gretchen’s work, with plenty of personal notes that might make readers quite envious of their jobs at the NHM.
“Being a meteorite curator is my dream job,” says Caroline. “I became fascinated by meteorites while I was studying geology and I’ve never lost interest.”
At the NHM she looks after a collection of nearly 2,000 meteorites, and researches new samples that come to the museum. Although she works with what she loves, Caroline has only ever seen meteorites in a museum or laboratory environment, so she was raring to go on the field trip.
Before she set off, she said: “I can’t wait to go out into the field to find meteorites where they have actually fallen. It will be so exciting to discover a meteorite and know that I’m the first person to pick it up.”
Gretchen has been on a meteorite hunt before, but in very different conditions. Previously, she went to the Antarctic, so the current trip is quite a different experience. The Antarctic is also a kind of desert, though, albeit a frozen one, which provides good conditions for preserving meteorites from contamination and degradation.
The collected meteorite samples will be brought back to the NHM (with the appropriate permission granted under Australian law) for studying.
The pair will also be making a Nature Live video during the trip, which will be webcast on the NHM site. Visit the blog to find out more.
The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, England
T: 020 7942 5000
Open: 10.00-17.50 daily
Last admission is 17.30
Closed: Closed on 24, 25 and 26 December ONLY
