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The ranks of French amateur astronomers have been urged to help find an apricot-sized meteorite that fell to Earth last weekend in the country’s southwest.
The rock, estimated at 150 grams (just over five ounces), was captured while diving in the atmosphere by cameras at an astronomy teaching center in Mauraux, and landed at exactly 10:43 p.m. Saturday near Aiguillon, about 100 km (62 miles) from Bordeaux. .
The site is part of the Vigie-Ciel (Sky Watch) project of a hundred cameras from the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network (FRIPON), which aims to detect and collect the ten meteorites that fall on France each year.
“Meteorites are vestiges of the creation of the solar system, with the advantage of never being exposed to the elements,” said Mickael Wilmart of the Open Sky astronomy teaching association which manages the observatory of Mauraux.
“A fresh meteorite like this, which fell just a few days ago, has not been altered by the Earth’s environment and therefore contains very valuable information for scientists,” he said.
Research is already underway, but calls for help have been made on social media and posters have been put up in areas where the rock is most likely to have fallen.
But Wilmart admitted that the chances of success were slim.
“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he says. “We really rely on people to look in their gardens, or along the road, they might come across this rock that is so sought after.
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