The continent is home to Earth’s largest concentration of the objects from outer space.
A meteorite found during a 2012 expedition to the area near Szabo Bluff in the Transantarctic Mountains in Antarctica. originate there. But global warming is endangering Antarctica’s meteorites, and a new analysis forecasts that close to three-quarters of the continent’s meteorites could disappear from the ice sheet surface by century’s end, making it nearly impossible to spot or retrieve the precious space rocks.
Meteorites are particularly sensitive to temperature, the researchers explain, and when they are exposed to the sun, their darker surface warms, which can melt the ice beneath and cause them to sink away from the ice surface.The researchers project that in all emissions scenarios, at least 5,000 meteorites a year will disappear from the surface.
This would represent a catastrophic loss to space scientists, who prize meteorites because of the information they contain about the development of our solar system. Since they formed up to billions of years ago, the space rocks offer important clues about stars, planetary formation, and even Earth’s geologic history.
As a result, the researchers say, it’s important to “rapidly and purposefully” collect as many such specimens as possible before they become inaccessible to science.“We need to accelerate and intensify efforts to recover Antarctic meteorites,” Harry Zekollari, a glaciologist who led the research while working at ETH Zurich’s department of civil, environmental and geomatic engineering, said in a.
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