“If the expedition is successful, it will be the first time in more than a hundred years when the meteorite is found in Scotland.”, – WRITE: www.unian.ua
If the expedition is successful, it will be the first time in more than a hundred years when the meteorite is found in Scotland.
Meteorite, according to scientists, weighed more than 60 kg / photo: screenshot with videoIn the Scottish mountains, a real hunt for the wreckage of the meteorite was announced, which brightly illuminated the sky on July 3. According to Interesting Engineering, scientists ask tourists and travelers to join the search, because time is playing against them: debris is quickly destroyed by moisture and weather.
The British Alliance UK Fireball Alliance (Ukafall) has identified a priority search zone-a section of about 20 km long in the Ben-Alder mountain plateau between Lokh Trig and Loch-Richt. There may be fragments weighing up to 10 kilograms. If the expedition is successful, it will be the first time in more than a hundred years when the meteorite will be found in Scotland.
Luke Daily, Professor of Planetary Geonus from Glasgow University and Search Group, recognizes: the chances of finding the fragments are small.
“This is always difficult, especially in the Scottish landscape. But even one piece weighing in grams is enough – and we will be able to conduct many experiments that will reveal the secrets of the early history of the solar system,” he said.
It is said that volunteers from the universities of Edinburgh, St. Endrius and Manchester, as well as a group of public scientists are involved in the search. However, searches in the mountains were a real challenge: swamps, peatlands and lakes often “absorb” debris.
In addition, the longer the stones lie in the open, the faster they lose scientific value. Due to bad weather and thunderstorms, the expedition was already forced to interrupt the work.
As it is noted, the meteorite that caused a fire flash in the sky weighed more than 60 kg and probably came from the inside of the main asteroid zone. His flight was recorded by 14 cameras, and almost 150 eyewitnesses reported the event.
How to recognize a meteorite
Scientists ask anyone who travels the Scottish mountains, pay attention to black, shiny stones that are heavier than their size. Their surface can be glassy or with rusty spots through moisture.
Meteorites usually contain up to 30% iron, so they are magnetic, but scientists warn: do not touch their magnet, because it will destroy valuable data on the magnetic field, which they “store” since their formation 4.56 billion years ago.
Finding a suspicious stone, you need to take a photo with GPS coordinates. The small fragment is allowed to be taken away, but only by wrapping it in a foil or clean package to avoid contamination.
By the way, the last meteorite in Scotland was found in 1917 – then he literally pierced the roof of the house. The current fall has occurred in one of the most remote corners of the country, so the help of tourists and mountain travelers is crucial.
If the wreckage can be found, it will not only be a sensation, but also open a new page in the history of research of the solar system.
Fresh discoveries of scientistsAs UNIAN wrote earlier, after several years of excavations, the team of archaeologists announced the detection of the Ruin of the city of Penico under the sands of the desert of about 3800 years. The settlement belonged to the civilization of kararals – one of the oldest in the world. It was said that long before the flourishing of the Inca, Mayan and Aztecs, the coast of modern Peru was a home for kararals whose main city was Kararal-Sup. It flourished about 5 thousand years ago when civilizations of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt developed at the other end of the world.
We also wrote that scientists stated that on July 9, July 22 and August 5, 2025, the length of the day was shorter than standard 24 hours by 1.3-1.51 milliseconds. The exact reason why this happened remains unknown. Scientists have shared some assumptions why it happened, among them, changes in the atmosphere, melting glaciers, movement in the nucleus of the Earth and weakening of the magnetic field.
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