The Gone Incognita podcast features audio versions of Gone Incognita blog posts. Episode 8 is based on: A quick introduction to meteorites.
If you want to understand the magnetic history of the solar system—or the galaxy, or the universe, or potentially habitable planets—you need iron from outer space. In the case of ALH84001, faint variations in tiny magnetic grains have allowed researchers to determine the history of Mars’s magnetic field—which used to protect the planet’s atmosphere and, by extension, its liquid water.
If a meteorite fell near your house, though, it would likely be exposed to rain, air pollution, microbes in the soil, and other forms of physical and chemical weathering. These factors can damage the information stored in the meteorite. For a beautifully preserved meteorite, you want a place that’s dry and less susceptible to pollution in the air, water, or soil.
Enter Antarctica.
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