Huge amount of alien material in the Iranian desert

Russian scientists have found a large amount of material from meteorite debris that could date back to the formation of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago.

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Russian scientists found 13 kg of extraterrestrial material in the Russian desert. Photo: Flickr.

Viktor Grokhovsky led an expedition to the Lut Desert in Iran and returned with 13 kilograms of extraterrestrial material, Sputnik News reported. The desert's arid conditions and unique landscape helped preserve meteorite material that dates back to the formation of the Solar System some 4.5 billion years ago.

A team of four geologists from Ural Federal University set out to the Lut Desert to search for evidence of a meteorite, similar to the one that burned up in a fireball over the town of Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. They found 13 kg of meteor-like material, with about 80% of the samples possibly of extraterrestrial origin.

The debris came from the same meteor shower, the researchers said, and at least 10 of the 70 samples they collected were of the same type of meteor. Half of the debris was preserved by Grokhovsky’s colleagues at Kerman University, while half was brought back to the Extra Terra Consortium laboratory in Russia for study.

"Currently, the samples are being measured and classified. To determine the age of the found debris, scientists will have to consider the time a piece of debris formed in space, the time it separated from its parent body and the time it spent on Earth. Based on radioactive isotopes, we can find out the age of the extraterrestrial entity in the form of a meteorite," Grokhovsky said.

According to VNE