Alien discovery in Antarctica

Scientists say they’ve found an ancient space rock in Antarctica – an extremely rare meteorite containing some of the oldest material in the solar system.

“When we saw this one sitting lonely in the middle of the blue ice, we all got so excited,” said Maria Valdes, a Chicago Field Museum researcher. told the Chicago Tribune.

The 17 lb meteoritedescribed as being about “the size of a gourd,” was discovered Jan. 5 by an international team at the end of an 11-day expedition.

The extraordinary rock, containing material from billions of years ago, is one of the largest meteorites ever found on the continent and likely originated in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. That reports The Independent.

“To put the size of the meteorite into perspective, of the 45,000 meteorites recovered from Antarctica over the past century, only 100 are this size or larger,” said Chicago’s Field Museum, which was part of the expedition.

Snowmobile researchers spent the better part of two weeks combing ice fields for meteorites when they made the stunning find just as they were about to wrap up their exploration, according to The Tribune.

Valdes said they were hesitant to celebrate at first, “because we knew if we found a meteorite, it was really the mother vein. On the last day, the last hour.”

The team became convinced it had indeed found a rare space rock when members discovered it was “the size of a bowling ball but twice the weight of a bowling ball,” Valdes told the newspaper.

The rock had what Valdes described as a “fusion crust” — a glassy outer layer that kind of melted as it entered the atmosphere. It was also worn out, a sign that it had been on Earth for many centuries.

The meteorite was sent to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Belgium for chemical analysis.

“All meteorites have something to say about Earth’s evolution,” Valdes said. “Size doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to meteorites, and even tiny micrometeorites can be incredibly scientifically valuable.”

Most of the 45,000 meteorites found in Antarctica over the past century weighed just a few grams, The Independent noted.

The find came months after NASA’s success destroyed a 530 foot wide asteroid in a test run to prepare for the possibility of a massive space rock hurling toward and threatening Earth, such as the 10km-wide asteroid scientists believe swept the dinosaurs millions of years ago.