2023-08-18 09:51:31
The famous historic building attracted the attention of two scientists, Dr. Penny Wozniakiewicz and Dr. Matthias van Ginnecken. They study micrometeorites, which are fragments of cosmic dust that comes to Earth from space. The study of this material will help expand our understanding of the size of the solar system and its boundaries.
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Between 20,000 and 40,000 tons of cosmic dust hits the Earth every year, but not all of it can be detected. Most of it burns up in the atmosphere, some of it passes through undamaged, and the other part melts and turns into small balls. They contain cosmic compounds that may indicate their origin.
Dr. van Ginneken spoke about his work in finding the parent objects of cosmic dust, mainly asteroids. The scientist believes that the collision of asteroids produces a huge amount of dust, which, under the influence of sunlight, loses momentum and begins to spiral towards the Sun. Some of this dust crosses the Earth’s orbit and becomes micrometeorites. At the moment, the connection between cosmic dust, meteorites and asteroids is not fully understood.
However, the most important thing for scientists is to get dust samples and analyze them. Researchers sift through the material, separating it from plaque caused by human or terrestrial activity, and with any luck find a few micrometeorites. Such work requires a large amount of dust. This prompted the team to turn their attention to Canterbury Cathedral.
During its existence, the building had enough time to accumulate material from space: the roof of the cathedral is already about 120 years old.
Armed with a shovel and brush, and then a vacuum cleaner, the researchers collected the first dust samples, cleaned it and examined it, highlighting several micrometeorite balls, as well as magnetite.
The next goal of the scientists will be the Rochester Cathedral, in total they plan to conduct 13 expeditions.
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