When asteroids are mentioned, images of celestial bodies flying in distant space most often come to mind. But you don't have to be an astronaut to see and touch a piece of the solar system: the wreckage of smaller planets is much closer than it appears. They can be found in every home or apartment during daily cleaning.
According to scientists, each year some 40 tons of space dust, or as it is called micrometeorites, once part of various celestial bodies, settles on the surface of the Earth. Located on a bookshelf, it poses no danger to humans, but in outer space, the situation is different. An astronaut's spacesuit specifically consists of several layers that protect him from micrometeorites. Although they weigh less than a gram, they can reach speeds of over thirty thousand kilometres per hour.
For the inhabitants of the planet, on the contrary, cosmic dust is extremely useful. It provides scientists with information that is almost impossible to obtain when studying ordinary meteorites. Firstly, they fall to Earth very rarely and mostly by accident. Secondly, they are exposed to high temperatures and pressures so that their original appearance changes. Because dust particles of tens of microns in size lose energy before they are ignited in the atmosphere, they manage to remain in their original form when they hit the surface. Studying cosmic particles in this authentic state helps researchers understand the structure of the solar system and the processes of planetary evolution.
Surprisingly, it is much easier to find micrometeorites, despite their small size, than large ones. A decade ago, scientists were looking for them mostly in sediment at great depths on the bottom of seas and oceans or in Antarctic ice. Urban environments were not thought to be conducive to their accumulation and preservation. Opinion changed dramatically after a small piece of cosmic material fell on Norwegian musician Jon Larsen's desk in 2009. The man, believing it to be a message from another planet, decided to look for similar objects on the flat roofs of neighbouring houses using a large magnet. After washing and sorting the dirt he collected, he was able to discover many celestial bodies, whose cosmic origin was later confirmed by science. Ever since, scientists have been collecting the dust from rooftops for research and the musician founded a movement to search for micrometeorites, which has nowadays become a popular hobby for space enthusiasts. There is even a belief among them that the tiny debris causes scratches on the windows of buildings and cars.
The celestial bodies that have fallen to Earth that are larger than two millimetres are now called full-fledged meteorites.
One of the world's oldest collections of such objects is in the collection of the Mining Museum. It includes specimens of the legendary Pallas' Iron, the four hundred kilogram meteorites "Augustinovka" and "Borodino", which flew on the eve of the Battle of Borodino in 1812. Also copies of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, a fragment of the huge iron meteorite "Canyon Diablo", which formed a crater more than a kilometre in diameter and 174 metres deep in Arizona.
Translated by Diego Monterrey, for Northwest Forpost.
