An international team has just returned from Antarctica with a special loot: a 7.6 kg meteorite present on the ice for tens of thousands of years.
An international team led by Vinciane Debaille (FNRS-ULB) and composed of Maria Schönbächler (ETH-Zurich), maria valdes (Field Museum of Natural History-U. Chicago) et Ryoga Maeda (VUB-ULB), and guided by Manu Poudelet (International Polar Guide Association) has just returned from a reconnaissance mission in Antarctica to search for new areas of meteorite accumulation around the Station belge Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.
Among their research, they came across the blue ice zone by Nils Larsenregarding sixty kilometers from the station.
The team also found a 7.6 kg meteorite. This is a meteorite that comes from the asteroid belt which ended its race in the Antarctic blue ice, waiting tens of thousands of years to be discovered. “This is a relatively rare piece“, explains Vinciane Debaille. In effect, there are not many meteorites weighing several kilos depending on the sender.
“To prevent the ice from melting and water from entering the meteorite, the meteorites are currently in the freezer“, Vinciane Debaille continues.
The next step is to thaw collected meteorites at the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium and at analyze them for a minimum of one month. “It is a primitive meteorite that will allow us to approach the birth of the solar system“.
■ Report by Mael Arnoldussen, Nicolas Scheenaerts and Hugo Moriamé
With the press releaseULB star
