Hillwalkers setting out to bag a Munro are being asked for their help to bag a meteorite too, as scientists race against time to recover precious samples of a space rock which lit up the skies over Scotland earlier this summer.
In the early hours of Thursday 3rd July, a meteor exploded as it entered the atmosphere over the north of the country. The fireball it created quickly went viral on social media, with users sharing footage of its trail captured on their mobile phones and home security cameras.
Researchers from the UK Fireball Alliance have combined data from public videos with images taken from their own dedicated meteor tracking cameras including the Global Meteor Network, UK Meteor Network and Global Fireball Observatory to reconstruct the meteors path and estimate where the meteorite fell.
They are appealing to hillwalkers to keep their eyes peeled for fragments of the meteorite when they are out and about across three Munros in the Scottish Highlands. If a hiker is lucky enough to find a piece, it would be the first time in more than a century that a meteorite has been successfully recovered in Scotland.
Fragments of the rock may be scattered across around 20 km of the Highlands, according to the team. Their analysis of the footage suggests that smaller fragments of up to 100 grams were dropped to the west as it travelled across Stob Coire Easain and Chno Dearg, before larger chunks up to 10 kilograms fell over Ben Alder (see general location here).
The team expect the majority of the meteorite’s mass to have landed on Ben Alder’s plateau, where exposed granite could make the dark space rock more visible to visitors.
A team of 14 volunteers from the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Manchester as well as several citizen scientists recently spent several days scouring the western side of the fall line. Their efforts were cut short by bad weather before they could recover any of the meteorite fragments, so they are turning to hillwalkers to ask for help.
Enthusiastic Munro baggers and hillwalkers who go to the area to enjoy the wonderful scenery and look for some extraterrestrial treasures are reminded that there is no vehicle access to the area without prior permission from the local estates, and to be respectful of the environment and other people who are enjoying the wild Scottish Highlands. If you are lucky enough to find a piece of the meteorite also look at UKFAlls guide on how to collect it safely and how to report your find.
If you think you’ve found a piece of last week’s meteorite fall then please send details and the coordinates to us by emailing meteorite [at] ukfall.org.uk or complete our webform. Please don’t put a magnet near it or touch it with your bare hands — instead pick it up in some aluminium foil or a clean and dry sandwich bag.
The UK Fireball Alliance 