What happened to this man is a fascinating story. According to the website of Museums Victoria, Australia, in 2015. David Hole explored Maryborough Regional Park in search of valuable resources. This place is located in a region that was rich in gold in the 19th century. In fact, other people had been lucky enough to find fragments of such a valuable metal, and Howl sought the same. However, it turned out to be a meteorite
The above, of course, was accompanied by a metal detector. At some point, his instrument began to make noise near strange reddish stone. The first thing he thought was that there might be a piece of gold inside, so he decided to take it home and try to open it.
Unfortunately, Hole was unable to complete its mission. To cut it, he used all kinds of tools: from a drill to a special stone-cutting saw. He even used acid, but to no avail. Despite the failure, he kept the stone for several years in the hope that he would later be able to mine gold.
However, he never got the gold. In fact, it turned out that the stone itself was much more valuable than the metal gold. When he took her to the Melbourne Museum to find out more, he received shocking news. It was not a simple stone, but a meteorite.
Melbourne Museum studied the meteorite
Such a possibility had never occurred to Howl, mainly because, from his description, he seemed to be sculpted like ordinary stone. But experts at the Melbourne Museum have an explanation that dispels any doubts.
Meteorites entering the Earth’s atmosphere begin to melt outside. The speed of the fall causes the molten material to form until its surface becomes smooth. After all, there is an object whose appearance is very similar to a stone.
The 17-kilogram meteorite, of course, became the object of study by the scientific community. They used a diamond saw to cut off a small fragment to study its internal properties.
Thanks to mineral analysis, the presence of a high percentage of iron was discovered, so the meteorite was classified as chondrite vulgaris type H5. This category is determined after studying the alteration of chondrules, submillimeter spheres. An interesting point is that at the moment, scientists around the world still do not know exactly what the origin of chondrules is.
“Meteorites offer the cheapest form of space exploration. They take us back in time and provide clues about the age, formation and chemistry of our solar system, including Earth. Some of them allow you to look into the depths of our planet. “There is stardust that is even older than our solar system, and it shows us how stars form and evolve, creating the elements of the periodic table. Other rare meteorites contain organic molecules such as amino acids, the building blocks of life,” said Dermot Henry, astronomer geologist at the Melbourne Museum.
The analysis of the meteorite found by David Hole is not yet so complex as to determine its origin, although there are some hypothesis. “It probably came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and some asteroids pushed it out, colliding with each other, and then one day it crashed into Earth,” Henry added.
As for the length of time this meteorite was on our planet, current data suggests that its stay ranged between from 100 to 1000 years. Considering the age of the Earth, we can say that it is a recent inhabitant.
Okay, Hole ran out of gold, but it brought scientists a much more valuable object. The latter say it is part of a collection of 17 meteorites found in the Victoria area.
Source: Hiper Textual
