Australian finds rare meteorite while looking for gold

The district of Maryborough, in Goldfields (Australia) was a place of great gold extraction in the past. Therefore, many people usually walk through this region with metal detectors in search of gold or other precious metals. Such is the case with David Hole, an Australian who found a rare meteorite while looking for gold.

In 2015, while walking through Goldfields with his metal detector, Hole came across a large rock. He believed there was gold inside it, so he decided to take it home.

After trying to open the rock in countless ways and failing, even trying to use acid on the material, David he decided to take it to the Melbourne Museum so that the specialists could help him discover what it was made of. rock.

The rock was actually a meteorite.

Upon arriving at the museum, the rock underwent evaluation by geologist Dermot Henry, who found it to be in fact a meteorite about 4.6 billion years old!

This meteorite weighed about 17 kg and appeared to have been carved, as its surface was very smooth, in addition to having a lot of iron in its composition.

Due to the high content of this mineral, the geologist classified it as “common chondrite of the 5th category”, that is, a “common” type of meteorite.

Henry believes this rock came from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. This belt groups together materials dating back to the early solar system and can provide important information about that period, such as our system's age and formation.

He even claims that - most likely - the meteorite fell here on earth between about 100 and 1000 years ago! This is because during this period many people saw objects falling from the sky in Maryborough.

You must be wondering if David came home with the meteorite, right? The answer is no. In Australia, space artifacts belong to the government and become “public property”.

However, it remains to be seen whether David will gain any value from finding this meteorite.