Wheres the best place on Earth to find meteorites?
Meteors fall into Earth’s atmosphere over every spot on the planet. However, there is one place that’s far better than anywhere else to find the meteorites that make it all the way to the ground. That place is a windswept field of ice near the edge of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. There, near the Allan Hills (which are actually the tips of huge mountains buried in the ice) one can find hundreds of meteorites lying around on the surface of the ice. There are tons of them. How did they get there? Meteorites fall into the snow all across Antarctica, then sink down until they hit a layer of solid ice. That ice flows slowly across the continent, to certain places where ice-buried mountains push it up. The upthrust ice evaporates in the dry Antarctic wind, leaving the meteorites exposed. How much junk is in orbit around the Earth? Ever since we started going into space, we have been leaving behind bits of orbiting debris. Today, there are known to be about 9,000 pieces of orbiting junk large
