The secret to helping you

Earth is a sphere that constantly collides with celestial bodies in space. So far, more than 40,000 meteorites have been found and countless other samples are still scattered all over the world.

With a value of up to $ 1,000 per gram, the stones from this space are always the target of many hunters. The following tips may help the process of finding them, but keep in mind: hunting for extraterrestrial treasure is a difficult job that requires real dedication.

Step 1. Allowed

Before planning, make sure that if you find anything, you will be allowed to keep them legally. Why do we remind you of this? Because there have been cases of meteorites found in national parks and as such, it has to be government-regulated, said David Kring, senior scientist at the Moon and Planet Institute in Houston. .

Public lands, especially privately owned areas, will be a safe place to start and you should agree in advance with the landlord to avoid future troubles.

Step 2. Select the appropriate location

'Meteors can fall anywhere, but most easily found in places where there are many rocks on the ground,' said Alan Rubin, a geochemist at the University of California (Los Angeles).

It is best to be a large and barren area, where a meteorite usually dark in color will be easy to identify. Desert areas (such as the Mojave Desert, Southern California) and the icy regions (such as Antarctica) are considered the ideal place for this search.'Moreover, the dry environment there (including Antarctica) helps preserve specimens well , ' Rubin said.

You should also pay attention around the area where there was a occurrence of cosmic rocks because many other fragments may be scattered somewhere nearby. Glorieta Mountain in Mexico or Holbrook, Franconia in Arizona and Great Plains of America are names to remember. In addition, since 1995, thousands of meteorites have been recalled in Gold Basin, Arizona.

Step 3: Search for new meteors

Some professional meteorite hunters often pay special attention to collisions between Earth and outer objects and then hunt for the latest meteorite pieces before the 2nd human intervention .

So when a fireball or meteor is discovered in a situation that is rushing towards Earth, how can you find its direction?

Recently, Marc Fries of Carnegie Institute in Washington has developed a technique to assist in determining their falling position without having a trajectory like before. The Doppler weather radar system used by Fries allows the detection of 'meteorites' quickly when they hit the ground.

Step 4. Harness the power of magnetism

Before the trip to the desert, experts recommend that you bring lots of water, sunglasses and should not go alone, and must prepare 2 cars for special use in this type of journey in case one is broken.

Also, what you can't forget is a metal detector because 'most meteorites contain iron metal - nickel , ' Rubin said.

However, some meteorites such as moon rocks or Martian rocks do not contain metals but mainly basalt. So, using a detector in this case will not work. And you can only detect them by carefully cleaning the soil that sticks to odd looking rocks.

Step 5. Share with science

If you've discovered something you think might be a sample from space, answer the following questions: is it black or brown? Is it very solid, has no small holes, is quite heavy compared to other rocks in the same area and seems to have metallic silver on the inside? Is it a magnetic sample? If you meet these criteria, you are most likely holding a 4.5 billion-year-old object of the universe.

Take some time to share that information with scientists, maybe this will be the key to the answer of one of the questions that still challenges humanity about formation and evolution. of the solar system.