Aside from celebrating the turn of the year, Dr. Phil Bland and the rest of his team who are doing research in the Australian outback have better and more momentous reasons to be joyous about. According to a report by the Huffington Post published mere days ago, Bland and his colleagues have unearthed a fragment of a meteorite that might be older than Earth itself. The discovery came following a considerable search.
Last year in late November, residents of South Australia became witnesses to the crashing of the said celestial object. The event was also caught by 32 cameras set up for the newly installed Desert Fireball Network which Dr. Phil Bland and his group from Curtin University have been a members of.
After analyzing the trajectory of the descent, researchers were able to pinpoint an approximate location of the fallen meteorite a little over a month after the crash on December 29. It took another three days of foot hunt to finally retrieve the 3.7 pound rock. The discovery came in the nick of time as predicted heavy rains could have washed it away.
According to Bland, the meteorite is older the our planet itself. The geologist further explains that the rock came from between Mars and Jupiter and might have been formed at the same time as the birth of the solar system more than four billion years ago.
Dr. Bland has since exclaimed how the discovery is only proof that the Desert Fireball Network produces results. He however clarifies that the retrieval of the meteorite is only the start of what he, his team and the 32 camera Desert Fireball Network expects to discover.
"We've got a lot more rocks on the ground. This recovery will be the first of many - and every one of those meteorites will give us a unique window into the formation of the Solar System" quipped Bland.