Find the desert meteorite of Oman

One of the 3 seedless meteors (*) was discovered during the search for cooperation between Oman and Switzerland. This seedless meteorite was discovered on January 21, 2009. Notice the contrast between sand and molten black crust of meteorites © 2009 Beda Hofmann

Meteors provide many valuable information about the early period of the solar system. A group of Swiss geologists have been systematically searching for meteorites in Oman since 2001. They have just finished and returned from their most recent search.

Most of the meteorites found are fragments of asteroids, some of which contain organic matter. Some meteorites contain information about the chemical structure of the solar system before the planets are formed. Others are fragments due to the collision of the moon's surface and Mars. Mars and moon fragments are very rare. They are often fragments in the past and were thrown out into space from the moon and Mars thousands, even millions of years ago.

We only have a few meteorite meteorites in our hands for laboratory analysis. We also have a few specimens collected by astronauts and brought back from the moon. The moon's meteorite fragments provide many clues to the early development of the moon - the earth, such as the recent strong impact. That period took place about 3.9 million years ago, when life was just formed on our planet, a huge number of meteorites were shot at the earth and the moon,

'Finding meteors is very important for planetary science and space biology , ' said Beda Hofmann, director of the Swiss Museum of Natural History and Earth Sciences. Hofmann and Edwin Gnos from the Natural History Museum in Geneva - Switzerland are also the chief meteorite search team in Oman.

In the last 30 years, the cold desert in Antarctica is one of the most suitable places to gather pristine meteorites. It is easy to pick up black stones from white snow and there are no rivers or other natural processes that the meteorite goes away. More recently, deserts in Africa and Oceania are also places where meteorites can be found. Dry conditions in the desert tend to preserve rocks and drought means that rocks are less prone to erosion or covered by sediments.

In 1999, there were a lot of meteorites in the market due to the activities of private collectors and traders in Oman. Located in south-west Asia on the Arabian Peninsula, the Omani project is a long-term search program in progress in the desert.

Over the past 10 years, Oman has supplied one-fifth of meteorites worldwide, including more than 5000 meteorites with a volume of about 4 tons. The search results in Oman include a third of the total moon meteorite and Mars.

Amateur meteorite collectors are accused of not preserving their meteorites properly and do not record enough data about their search, making it difficult for scientists to learn about them. Amateurs found the first meteorite in Oman. In fact, it was the appearance and sale of these meteorites and moon meteorites that caught the attention of Swiss researchers. They enlisted the support of the Omani government, and on their first search in 2001, the team found a meteorite from Mars.

The search team for Oman and Switzerland on the black stone in front of the seedless meteorite was found on January 27, 2009. From left to right: Matthias Meier (ETH Zurich); Florian Zurfluh (University of Bern); Nathalie Dalcher (University of Bern); Mohammed Al-Battashi, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Muscat, Oman; Mariana Cosarinsky, (University of Bern); Nicolas Greber (Bern Natural History Museum); Beda Hofmann (Bern Natural History Museum); Silvio Lorenzetti (ETH Zurich). (Photo: © Beda Hofmann)

Hofmann was proud that the meteorite collection was conducted in collaboration with the Omani government.'So far, we have been allowed to bring all the necessary specimens to Switzerland,' he said, 'however, these specimens are still owned by the king of Oman.' After all, the typical samples will be on display at the National Historical Museum of Muscat, the capital of Oman.

This year, Hofmann and his search team conducted a search campaign that lasted from January to February. Hofmann's group consisted of five people using off-road vehicles to search for dark meteorites on the bright surface of the desert. This 2009 campaign has achieved very positive results. 143 meteorite pieces equivalent to 123kg were found to represent 80 to 100 different collision events (a few meteorite pieces were broken as parts of the Earth's atmosphere). Most meteorites are found to be seedless meteorites, these meteorite rocks contain chondrule. As the oldest solid material that existed since the early days of the solar system, the chondrule was even older than asteroids. They may be blocks of primitive materials that make up those planets.

Meteorites are fossils that, based on which geologists can reconstruct the history of the solar system. Most of the meteorite pieces found in O-man have not fallen to earth recently. They have fallen to the earth and lie in the desert from about a few thousand years ago. The main pressure of this study by Swiss scientists is to find out how the environment made meteorites change and how those meteorites could change shape compared to the original. head.

The desert in O-man seems to contain a lot of special meteorites. Precious fragments can reveal to scientists a great deal about the state of the early solar system when these meteorites were first reconnected. These fragments are then tied together by the earth's gravity toward planets, moons and asteroids. By helping us reconstruct the early days of our solar and planetary systems, these meteorites take us closer to the secret of the conditions necessary for the original life of the earth. .

Note:

(*) Achondrite: Seedless meteors
This is a kind of rock meteorite whose composition is similar to basalt soil (basalt terrestrial) or deep rock (plutonic rock). Seedless meteors are easily recognizable by their characteristic shells and minerals due to burns and re-crystallization.

Seedless meteors occupy about 8% of meteorites that fall on Earth, most of them (about two-thirds) are HED meteorite (HED meteorite), derived from the crust of the asteroid 4 Vesta . The rest are derived from Mars, Moon and some other unidentified asteroids. The classification of seedless meteorites is based on the analysis of the chemical composition of Fe / Mn and oxygen O17 / O18 isotopes, which are considered "fingerprints" of the mother bodies of these meteorites. .