Canadian researcher joins NASA hunt for meteorites in Antarctica
An Ontario physicist is embarking on a NASA-funded speed to Antarctica to collect meteorites, in hopes that a depressed space rocks will give researchers new discernment into a outdoor reaches of a solar system.
Scott VanBommel, a post-doctoral associate during a University of Guelph, is fasten a annual Antarctic Search for Meteorites for a six-week outing to a Transantarctic Mountains, about 350 km from a South Pole.
It will meant sleeping in a two-person tent in one of a slightest hospitable environments on Earth, though VanBommel pronounced it’s a possibility to give behind to a systematic community.
“I’m only unequivocally happy to go and be a partial of this critical work,” a 30-year-old pronounced hours before his Friday departure. “We can learn a lot by investigate these fragments of space rocks that potentially are in their local form, from when a solar complement formed. They yield us small windows into a past, to investigate and potentially learn more.”
Canadian physicist Scott VanBommel is one of a handful of volunteers comparison from a pool of 100 researchers who ask any year to attend in a annual trip. (University of Guelph/Canadian Press)
Antarctica’s empty, ice-covered area creates a continent ideal for spotting space debris.
“Meteorites tumble flattering regularly all over a world, though what creates Antarctica special is that we have this white backdrop, so we have these dim meteorites and this light background,” VanBommel said. “It creates them most easier to find than, say, around here where we have weathering and erosion and dirt.”
Antarctica is also home to hulk ice sheets which, over thousands of years, gradually change toward a edges of a continent. When a ice sheets run adult opposite towering ranges or other healthy barriers, aged ice low next a aspect gets forced up, bringing deposits of aged meteorites with it.
Led by Ralph Harvey, a heavenly materials highbrow during Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, a speed organisation will separate into dual groups of 4 people.
One organisation will continue a ongoing systemic hunt of an area visited in prior missions.
Lookout for new sites
The second group, that includes VanBommel, will control “spot-to-spot” reconnaissance, looking for new sites.
“It’ll be exciting,” VanBommel said. “We’re covering a lot of belligerent this year.”
The Norwich, Ont., local is one of a handful of volunteers comparison from a pool of 100 researchers who ask any year to attend in a trip.
In 2013, scientists detected an 18-kilogram meteorite in eastern Antarctica, a largest in a area given 1988. 425 meteorites were found during a 40-day expedition. (International Polar Foundation)
As one of a rookie members of a team, VanBommel went by a three-day foot stay during Case Western to ready him for a trip.
“We went over all a sum of what we’ll be doing, a form of apparatus we’ll have, reserve stuff. It was really consummate 3 days,” he said.
Since 1976, a Antarctic Search for Meteorites has brought behind over 21,000 meteorite specimens. The samples they redeem are shipped to a laboratory during NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Samples of a meteorites are also sent to a Smithsonian Institution. Researchers from anywhere in a universe can inspect a meteorite samples, on request.
Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/antarctica-meteorites-vanbommel-1.4418474?cmp=rss