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Saturday 22 November 2008

Slow Life

Out of this world

Meteorites, particularly Martian ones, are quite valuable to scientists and there have been a number of expeditions to Antarctica to recover them. They’re easiest to spot in Antarctica. It’s a frozen desert and the things, including that famous one ALH84001, sit there for millennia just waiting to be picked up by a scientist.

I’ve always kind of got one eye out for meteorites when I’m walking around the countryside, looking subconsciously for a telltale burn crust or the dull gleam of iron, but only 25 have ever been found in the British Isles, and, of the 25, 22 of them were seen to fall: a flash, a fireball and then a bemused farmer holding a piece of outer space. In 1835 one fell on Aldsworth. Like all the others to fall on these shores it was from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. I guess we were 170 years late, but it was a good enough reason to meet for lunch.

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