On a gold prospecting trip... he thought it was a rock, so it was a precious surprise
About seven years ago, on a mineral prospecting trip in Maryborough Provincial Park near Melbourne, David Hall discovered a heavy, reddish rock lodged in the ground.
Hall took the rock home and tried everything to break it up, using a rock saw, a drill, and even dousing it in acid, yet he was unable to put a crack in it.
Years later, Hall discovered that the rock was a rare meteorite.
“I've looked at a lot of rocks that people think are meteorites,” Melbourne Museum geologist Dermot Henry said. “In fact, after 37 years of working at the museum and examining thousands of rocks, it turned out that only two of the exhibits were real meteorites.”
The researchers published a scientific paper describing the 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite, which they named Maryborough after the town near where it was found.
According to the “Science Alert” website, the meteorite weighs 17 kilograms, and after using a diamond saw to cut a small slice, the researchers discovered that its composition contains a high percentage of iron.
Henry explained: “Meteorites provide the cheapest form of space exploration. They transport us back in time and provide evidence of the age, formation and chemistry of our solar system, including Earth.”
Although researchers do not yet know where the meteorite came from and how long it has been on Earth, they have some guesses.
Concerning this, Henry said: “This particular meteorite most likely came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it was pushed out by some asteroids that collided with each other, and then one day collided with Earth.”
According to researchers, the Maryborough meteorite is much rarer than gold, which makes it much more valuable to science, as it is one of only 17 meteorites ever recorded in the Australian state of Victoria.
Source: websites