\n The Ben Alder site potentially has the greatest chance of a discovery, where exposed granite on the plateau could make the dark meteorite rock more visible.\n<\/p>\n
\n Professor Luke Daly, of the University of Glasgow, recently led a search party to Ben alder \u2013 but the team of 14 volunteers had to cut their efforts short due to weather.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2021, he led the team which recovered the largest intact fragment of the Winchcombe meteorite, the first of its kind to be retrieved on UK soil in nearly 30 years.\n<\/p>\n
\n Professor Daly said: \u201cMeteorites are time capsules of the early Solar System, which hold a wealth of information about how our Solar System formed and developed.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis is a very exciting opportunity to learn more about where this rock came from and where it has been and fill in a bit more of the jigsaw of our Solar System\u2019s history.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe know from intensive analysis of the Winchcombe samples that meteorites are very quickly affected by contact with the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe longer these pieces sit out on the Scottish hills, the more they will be weathered and the less we\u2019ll be able to tell about their composition.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe clock is very much ticking on our chances to learn as much as we can from these rocks, so any help that hillwalkers can give us could make all the difference.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n (Image: Vishnu Prasad on Unsplash)\n<\/p>\n
\n Dr Aine O\u2019Brien is also at the University of Glasgow and helped to lead the search.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: \u201cWe\u2019re asking hillwalkers to keep an eye out for rocks which stand out from everything around them.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cMeteorites are black and shiny with an almost glassy appearance, and they are heavy for their size.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSince it could be about 30% iron, it may also look slightly rusty after all the rain we\u2019ve had recently.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf someone is lucky enough to bag a meteorite while bagging a\u00a0Munro, we\u2019re asking them to take a photo and take a note of their GPS location and send it to the UK Fireball Alliance.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf it\u2019s small enough to be picked up, please try not to handle it directly \u2013 wrapping it in aluminium foil or a clean sandwich bag would be very helpful. If it\u2019s too big to carry, the GPS location will help us recover it later.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Jamie Shepherd of the UK Meteor Network said any find would be \u201chistory-making\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n The last time a meteorite was recovered in Scotland was 1917.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bright meteor was witnessed by by some Scots as it streaked across the sky in the early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-417172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115188624476575321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}