Part of Martitz on the ground

1993/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

We know that lately human beings have as one of their dreams to go from Earth to Mars and for this they are sending probes and spaces from here. There are also parts coming from there (meteorites).

If you want to locate meteorites, the most appropriate place is Antarctica, where ice cushions the impact and then retains it. That is why thousands of people have gathered in the last ten years. Meteorites fallen in temperate lands become dust in a few centuries.

In a set of meteorites that arrived at the dock in 1988, due to its composition, was one of the most interesting. It was called LEW 88 516 and weighed 13.2 kilos. Part of the weight of the sixth part was sent to the Institute of Physics of the University of Bern to be analyzed by Professor Otto Eugster.

The composition of meteorites allows you to know many things. The contents of inert gases such as Argon, zenon, cripton, etc. indicate when they crystallized and how long they have elapsed in space. The more radioactive the inert gas, the cosmic rays have hit the meteorite the longer (therefore, the journey through space has been so much longer).

The analysis of the LEW 88 516 meteorite indicates that before reaching Earth it has traveled in space for three million years. However, the most surprising thing is that in 1976 the Viking probe has the same structure as the stones analyzed in Martitz next to the volcano Olympus Mons. The meteorite “Zagami”, discovered in Nigeria in 1962, also presents these characteristics. That has also made a journey of three million years and is believed to come from Mars. A total of nine Martian meteorites have been detected on Earth.

How have all these meteorites come to Earth? There may be several interpretations, but it seems that a large asteroid hit the red planet and raised millions of fragments. This asteroid about fifty meters in diameter, with a speed of 20 km/s in space, was going to have a big collision, and considering that the gravitational force on Mars is twice as small as on Earth, some raised pieces would reach us.

According to some American astronomers, the asteroid's collision site is seen in the photos sent by the Viking probe. It is an elliptical crater of tens of kilometers in diameter.