Today we went to a meteorite museum it was set up in a big blow up dome in the middle of a San Pedro De Atacama Desert. Our guide had been studying geology and astronomy for 8 years, she had been interested in astronomy since she was a little girl. There were tv screens under every glass cabinet showing us different meteorites and how fast they hit the earth. Thank goodness that the tour was in English as well as Spanish. We got to hold different types of meteorites, including the oldest meteorite on Earth that was 450 million years old. Then the guide asked us a question, it was; Why is the Atacama Desert so prone to meteorites? And I said “Because it is so dry here”, and guess what, I was the only person she had ever asked that got the answer right! I learnt a lot of astronomy from these fascinating facts:

Meteorite Dispersion Ellipse

The drastic reduction in cosmic velocity due to our atmosphere, subjects the meteor to great stress due to ram pressure, usually fragmenting into many pieces, which can spread over the ground, in what is called a Dispersion Ellipse. A form of rocks on the ground like a kite.

The field works consists of marking the position of the first meteorite fragment found with a GPS, and a Banderole (it’s okay if you don’t know what half the words mean) and continue the search for other fragments, once they found 3 fragments of noticeable different weight, they sense the direction of entry of the meteorite, and glimpse the outline of the Dispersion Ellipse on the ground.

Montraqui Impact Crater

Set on a paleozoic granite rock, this crater has a diameter of 380M and a depth of 31M, and is the largest meteortic that formed the crater in Chile, it is estimated that the meteorite that formed the crater had a diameter of 13 meters, and impacted against the ground at a speed of 54,000KmH!

The shock wave produced by the impact was equivalent to 2 Hiroshima atom bombs and generated temperatures higher than 1.400c, capable of vaporising the meteorite along with local rocks, which were ejected over the crater rim , then solidifying and forming impactites, a glassy vesicular aggregate composed of minerals from the local friendly rock, and small nodules (not noodles) belonging to the meteorite.

Meteorites And The Big Evolution Of The Amazing Solar System

Chondrites were the first rocks in the solar system, 4500 million years ago a cold, dark, cloud of dust and gas underwent gravitational collapse, possibly induced by the blast wave from a supernova, giving rise to our solar system, as soon as the accretion disk around a early sun settled, a thermal gradient medal was established. And then the elements that were in gaseous state began to condense forming the first solid bodies.

The formation of these rocks is called a primitive chondrites, metal particals made of Fe-Ni, and mainly silicate spherules of ingenious origin called chondrules. Within the chondrites there is a main group called ordinary chondrites, representing 85% of meteorite falls on earth. And are divided into 3 chemical types, H, L and LL, which indicates the amount of iron present.

It is assumed that these 3 groups are formed in different parent bodies,which would indicate the variability in the composition of the proto-planetary nebula at the time of condensation.

Meteorites and the evolution of the solar system

Crust, mantle and nucleus , these 3 meteorites represent a collection of rocks formed by volcanic basaltic magma (solidification of magma at the surface) and plutonic (solidification of magma inside the crust)

Morenosite crystalline gardens in the vaca muerta mesosiderite

The meteorite of vaca muerta fell in a zone of costal influence of the Atacama Desert, where the humidity goes in land in the form of dense fog; this allowed the growth of the wonderful crystalline formations of apple green colour, or greenish white vitreous luster.

Morenosite crystals, a heptahydrated nickel sulfate, are result of a mixture of terrestrial sulfates with nickle during thousands of years of adequate humidity conditions.

I really enjoyed the meteorite museum I think it ignited a light inside me, from now on I want to take astronomy a little bit more seriously than before. It was amazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! P.S we got to touch the oldest meteorite in the world !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to a meteorite museum and we got to touch the oldest meteorite in the world.