Space under your feet: how a scientist from Reutov hunts for meteorites all over the planet. “It was decided to confiscate all meteorites”  Km across the desert on foot

Three places where meteorite fragments fell were discovered in the Chelyabinsk region, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the press center of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Two fragments were found in the Chebarkul district of the Chelyabinsk region, another in Zlatoust. Earlier, the press service of regional governor Mikhail Yurevich released a message according to which a meteorite fell into a lake near the city of Chebarkul. And the military reported that they found a crater with a diameter of 6 meters on the shore of the lake. The first hunters for meteorite fragments have already appeared. What kind of meteorites are there, and how much are the remaining fragments worth, the radio correspondent said"Vesti FM" Sergei Tkachuk.

As with most collectibles, the price of a meteorite is determined by many factors, including the rarity of the type of meteorite, its origin, preservation, and aesthetic appeal. The meteorite hunting community uses the metric system of weight (measured in grams) and size (measured in millimeters) to determine their value. According to the research astronomer Timur Kryachko, the overwhelming number of meteorite fragments found are, contrary to rumors about millions, actually worth pennies:

“If we are talking about retail prices, the most banal in composition or the most common meteorites cost about $1 per gram. This is important to say here because there are a lot of newspaper stories that claim that all meteorites are extremely expensive. In fact, the dollar "per gram is the usual retail price for 90% of meteorites. It is believed that commonplace meteorites, ordinary chondrites (a lot of them were found in Africa), have been very well studied, so they are not of great value."

Chondrites are stony meteorites. More expensive meteorites are iron ones - from 2 to 3 dollars per gram. They are even used to make various things, such as knives, which are quite expensive, says the director of the Antique Hunter store. Sergey Gavrilov. He himself is interested in meteorites:

“These meteorites have a very interesting steel, which cannot be obtained in earthly conditions. It flew for a million years, melted. The properties of this steel are very interesting. People make a lot of things from them and did them even before us, hundreds of years ago - they forged chain mail and swords ".

The next most expensive are iron-stone pallasites. They contain olivine (a semi-precious stone) and are especially valuable for cutting and polishing surfaces. The price of these meteorites ranges from 20 to 40 dollars per gram. Since meteorites of this type are heavy, a high-quality cut the size of a small plate will cost a thousand dollars. And, finally, the most expensive are Martian and lunar meteorites, that is, parts of Mars and the Moon knocked out from the surface by asteroid impacts. Their price can reach thousands of dollars per gram. According to Timur Kryachko, it is not difficult to determine the identity of such meteorites:

“This is almost unambiguous, because they coincide with the composition of lunar matter that was brought from the Moon - these are lunar meteorites. And Martian ones... Now Mars is also quite well studied thanks to automatic stations. There are dozens of such meteorites, there are not many of them in the world. And They are very valuable for research, so they are really very expensive."

It is unknown which meteorite exploded over the Chelyabinsk region. But regardless of what kind of meteorite it is, it is of great value, says the research astronomer Timur Kryachko:

“The research value will be very high, even if this meteorite is some kind of banal. Because it fell in front of witnesses. Inside, the substance has not yet been spoiled, has not been changed under the influence of moisture, terrestrial microbes, or other terrestrial factors. That is, it is very fresh. And in any case, very valuable. Everything will depend on the rarity of the substance and the size."

Meanwhile, on the website of one of the Chelyabinsk online stores, in the jewelry section, an advertisement has already appeared - “due to uselessness, I am selling the morning meteorite.” The price is only 500 rubles.

Our meteorite team consists of two people: Mikhail and Alexey, we are not professional meteorologists, but amateurs. The first interest in this topic arose even before the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, when we attempted to find a fragment of the Droninsky meteorite, widely known in narrow circles, in the Ryazan region (a meteor shower weighing hundreds of kilograms that fell near Kasimov more than 1000 years ago), then we were unlucky and we returned with nothing.

Then the well-known fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite occurred, the work did not allow us to move to the site in February, but at the end of April we were already on site and managed to find 14 fragments near the village of Deputatskoye, then we realized that stones from the sky can be found. Moreover, we have gained experience and understanding of what is needed for this. Then there was an unsuccessful trip to search for the Annam meteorite on the Kola Peninsula, a successful trip to Dronino, with the discovery of two small fragments of this meteorite, and a search for meteorites after a bright fireball near Arzamas in the summer of 2017. We monitored reports on the Internet about bright fireballs and waited for a suitable fall.

And finally, it happened.

I found out about a day after the fall (which occurred in the early morning of June 21, 2018), having read Alexey’s message sent at night and, upon arriving at work, looking at the Astroforum website. I was immediately struck by the brightness of the fireball, captured by a video recorder on a bright sunny morning, and by the fact that it was split into fragments, giving hope for a meteor shower. After consulting with Alexei, we decided that we needed to leave immediately.

So we leave in the evening. But where to look? It is not clear yet... Calculating the location of the fall from photographs of eyewitnesses and the testimony of video recorders is a long job, requiring clarification of the location of the shooting and the azimuth for various phases of the event. Several reliable observation points with azimuths allow you to determine the location of the event, altitude, and speed. We previously did this work on fireballs over the Crimea, the Kola Peninsula, the Sayans, Arzamas, but this time there was a feeling that we had to figure it out on the spot. As the starting point of the search, I take the projection of the fireball's track, taken by the weather satellite onto the map; according to it, the village of Shilovo on the Krasivaya Mecha River turned out to be a promising place.

At dawn we arrived at the place, looked around, interviewed fishermen in Shilovo, who confirmed that at dawn they heard a roar from which the windows in the houses shook and dishes rattled. Their version of events was as follows: “This is Putin’s “Dagger” testing what kind of meteorites they tell you, but we know...” (“Dagger” is a hypersonic missile). In general, residents of the Lipetsk region, due to their proximity to the aviation center named after V.P. Chkalov, are inclined to precisely such interpretations of all sorts of celestial phenomena and noises.

Information about the fireballs is transmitted to NASA from the American military, which monitors the entire territory of the globe from a network of spy satellites, the main purpose of which is to monitor the launches of ballistic missiles and record powerful explosions.

NASA coordinates almost coincided with estimates at Astroforum. All this time, these comrades worked hard to link video from dash cams and photographs to the area and achieved significant progress in their work. The estimated impact points were 50 km to the south. We rushed there. At the same time, at least two more teams arrived there: the Ural Federal University from Yekaterinburg (URFU) and the Institute of Geochemical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences from Moscow together with Timur Kryachko.

Moving to the south. At about two o'clock in the afternoon we are in the Ozerka - Polskoye area. They searched in the following way: every 300-500 meters they stopped the car and inspected the road forward and backward along the route, and, if possible, the surrounding copses and fields. Other search groups acted in the same way, or searched "on wheels", moving slowly along rural roads and carefully examining the road in front of them in the hope of stumbling upon large fragments. Unfortunately, we were not exactly where the meteor shower fell - literally 2-5 kilometers from the treasured field.

We were not the only ones who were mistaken - the URFU team was initially confident that, according to their calculations, the crash site was located near the village of Polskoye.

During the search, we met with other teams, exchanged contacts and agreed to exchange information, but time passed, and there were still no finds. If you saw local residents, you talked to them. However, we did not find any witnesses to what was happening. Many, if not all, woke up from the roar, but only a few observed the phenomenon itself, mostly drivers on the highway.

In the evening, we gradually moved away along a labyrinth of dirt roads northwest of the village of Ozerki and spent the night in a tent in a forest belt.

Morning. We decide to look in the triangle Zhiloye - Polskoe - Ozerki, this triangle contains the NASA point. And again, as it turned out, this was a mistake - the crash site was literally 3 km northeast of the middle of this triangle. Another day passed with fruitless searches, after lunch a message arrived from Astroforum, our friend, based on the results of his calculations, recommended moving to the Zlobino - Ozerki line.

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We moved there, on the way out of Ozerki we again talked with the search engines from URFU, and then heavy rain began to fall. Under this rain, we stopped the search and left for Moscow, and the team of URFU and GEOKHI, obviously, decided the next day to continue the search from the eastern side of the village of Ozerki, and on Monday, in the afternoon, already in Moscow we learn that the first meteorite was found. That is, we were on the threshold of the “promised land” and talked with Alexander and Gregory from UrFU on the edge of that very field, at the fork in the asphalt and dirt road, hundreds of meters from the place where meteorites would be found the next day, and left from there ...

By the middle of the week, more than 6 meteorites had already been found, the largest of which weighed 550 g.

Unable to wait for the weekend, we set out on a second trip to the site of the meteorite fall on Thursday, a week after the fall. Timur Kryachko, a very experienced comrade, one of the best specialists in searching for meteorites in Russia, who had previously been on meteorite expeditions in Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Chile and other countries, also went with us on the second trip. Having arrived at the site and spent the night in a hotel in the village of Stanovoe, which overnight turned into the base of several meteorite expeditions - scientific and commercial, we began the search.

It must be said that before the search, a very good place was chosen to park the car and field camp - completely invisible from the road and adjacent to the site of the meteor shower, which, as subsequent events showed, turned out to be important.

The search for meteors occurs as follows: the searcher simply walks around the area, as if picking mushrooms, and looks carefully, looking for stones that are not typical for this area. Meteorites look like dark, almost black stones, with a matte fused surface. If there are chips on a meteorite, then it is clear that inside the material from which the meteorite is composed is usually gray in color. The necessary device for identifying meteorites is a magnetic staff, which is a trekking stick with a powerful neodymium magnet attached to it.

Source: Pavel Kotlyar/Gazeta.Ru

Most meteorites, even those called stony ones, contain iron and exhibit magnetic properties. Since the iron content is quite low, a conventional magnet does not always allow one to confidently distinguish a meteorite, and it is highly advisable to acquire a strong neodymium magnet. It should be noted that a number of completely terrestrial stones also exhibit magnetic properties. The combination of signs is important.

The search began and after a couple of hours I found the first small meteorite weighing 5 grams (later it turned out that this was perhaps the smallest sample found in the field), another couple of hours, and on the border of the field and the forest belt I came across a second larger meteorite - 70 grams in weight. He lay on the arable land, in a small crater about 10 centimeters in size, knocked out by him when he fell, and, at first glance, without even resorting to a magnet, it was clear that it was him.

It should be noted that many people are misconceived about the speed at which meteorites fall to the ground. A stone meteorite, passing through the earth's atmosphere, is usually crushed into small fragments, this crushing occurs at an altitude of 20-50 kilometers, where they are decelerated from cosmic speeds to the speed of free fall, during the braking process a dark burnt surface is formed, and overloads reach hundreds of G.

By the time it falls to the ground, a small stone meteorite moves at the speed of an ordinary thrown stone, and if its weight is small, it does not burrow deep into the ground, but lies on the surface.

The exception is large stone meteorites weighing hundreds of kilograms on loose soil. They can burrow meters into the ground. An iron meteorite is another matter; even its small fragments retain high speed and are capable of piercing trees like shrapnel, as was observed during the fall of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite, while large fragments go into the ground to a considerable depth.

After a few hours of searching, luck also visits Alexey - in a forest belt he discovers a meteorite weighing 140 grams, lying on the forest floor, in a birch forest belt, on its sides there are stripes and a coating of bark - it looks like it first hit a tree, bounced off and only then fell to the ground . In the afternoon, Timur finds his first meteorite - quite large, weighing about 150 g. After these finds there will be others, but nothing can compare to the joy of finding the first meteorite!

16.01.2013 06:50

Voronezh resident Timur Kryachko, although he is considered an amateur in the astronomical world, his “amateurism” makes us talk today about him as the discoverer of stars and planets with a capital letter.

Voronezh resident Timur Kryachko, although he is considered an amateur in the astronomical world, his “amateurism” makes us talk today about him as the discoverer of stars and planets with a capital letter. He is the organizer of several astro sites. His knowledge and mastery of the telescope, so to speak, allow him to admire and imitate everyone who is glued to the eyepieces of their simple telescopes, hoping for personal discoveries.
Timur Kryachko is a man.

Here it is, the sky above us. And it seems that for thousands of years, astronomers around the world have meticulously explored every millimeter of this vast ocean with the help of magnifying glasses. And now astronomers-physicists are constantly probing it with their antennas using powerful radio telescopes. It seems that an ordinary telescope is an anachronism. But no. Today's enthusiasts still believe their eyes. And we are pleased with their successes and achievements in observational astronomy.

First among the first I remember my meeting with Timur in Komsomolsky Square back in 1995, when a very young man with an amazing sparkle in his eyes stood in front of me. He enthusiastically told how he discovered his first comet while still in urgent care. And he saw her with the help of a simple telescope on the roof of the barracks. Delighted, he had already decided, by right of the discoverer, to name the comet after himself, but, alas, his application was only a few days late. Before him, it turned out, another astronomer, a Japanese professional, had applied for the discovery of the same comet.

Timur’s account in the story at the meeting already included several claims for the discovery of minor planets. And he even showed a document to one and gave me a copy of the certificate for the discovery of his own asteroid. Timur named his first discovered small planet “Stargazer”, after his favorite Russian astronomical magazine...
Timur Kryachko - asteroid

Continuing to follow the successes of my professional colleague, and Timur Valerievich studied geology at Voronezh State University, I am happy to see that it is to the domestic group of amateur astronomers, united under the wing of two observatories - Ka-Dar and the TAU Astronomical Station - that the scientific world owes dozens of discoveries of small planets, comets and even supernovae.

The scientific work at both observatories is led by a Russian amateur astronomer, a popularizer of science-intensive observations among astronomy enthusiasts, Muscovite Stanislav Aleksandrovich Korotky. Asteroid No. 231649 “Short” was named in his honor. After Timur Kryachko, he is the second in the number of small planets discovered in the Russian Federation (including the former USSR) as an amateur.

Stones flying from the sky Stanislav Korotky and his friends have some very original observations made on the night of October 6-7, 2008. For the first time in human history, they recorded with a telescope how asteroid No. 2008 TC3 entered the earth's atmosphere. And these observations helped to clarify the location of the meteorite fall.

Timur Valerievich Kryachko has first-hand knowledge of the substance that makes up minor planets. He was a member of the expedition of geologist A.E. Milanovsky to western Kazakhstan. The meteorite brought from the expedition was named Beineu (olivine-bronzite stone meteorite-chondrite (H6). The only individual specimen of the meteorite, strongly weathered and crushed into pieces, was found by Timur Kryachko during a hiking route on October 19, 2001. At the end of 2005, after the death of the expedition leader he transferred to the RAS Meteorite Collection all 16.1 grams of the meteorite at his disposal out of the lost total mass of 45 grams.

Here is what Timur writes about his work: “We are the only discoverers of small planets (asteroids) in the solar system in Russia. These are the only celestial bodies, the right to name which belongs entirely to the discoverer... We are working on a program to search for asteroids that threaten the Earth with a collision.” Is the earth in danger? Craters were formed on the body of the Earth at different times due to bombardment by meteorites and comets. This is subject to a collision with our planet of especially large space aliens. According to scientific sources, “a total of 120 craters were found on the surface of the planet. 33 craters have a diameter of more than five kilometers and are about 150 million years old.”

The formation of such craters on Earth is called astroproblems, “star wounds”. On Earth they are not very numerous (compared to the Moon) and are quickly smoothed out under the influence of erosion and other processes.

Here is another statement by scientists on this matter: “Geochemical and paleontological data indicate that approximately 65 million years ago, at the turn of the Mesozoic period of the Cretaceous era and the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era, a celestial body collided with the Earth in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula (the coast of Mexico) . The trace of this collision is a crater called Chicxulub. The power of the explosion is estimated at 100 million megatons of TNT! This created a crater with a diameter of 180 km. The crater was formed by the fall of a body with a diameter of 1015 km. At the same time, a gigantic cloud of dust weighing a total of one million tons was thrown into the atmosphere. The six-month night has arrived on Earth. More than half of the existing plant and animal species died. Perhaps then, as a result of global cooling, dinosaurs became extinct.

According to modern science, in just the last 250 million years there have been nine extinctions of living organisms with an average interval of 30 million years. These disasters can be associated with the fall of large asteroids or comets to Earth.”

Once, Voronezh geologists in the Semiluk region, while drilling a deep well, discovered a large meteorite crater in the Devonian rock of about the same time. In their opinion, the crater from the meteorite fall is approximately 60-65 million years old. It is filled with a crumbled mass of rock and contains a thick layer of mineral water. It is possible that in Mesozoic times the bombardment of the Earth periodically passing through the asteroid belt was not such a rare occurrence.

However, both in ancient times and today, space guests have poured and continue to pour into the territory of the Voronezh region. Some eyewitnesses of the falls bring the meteorites they found to VSU. A few years ago, my friend Evgeniy Chepurin witnessed the fall of a meteorite in Voronezh onto the roof of one of the buildings. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to get to this roof for a unique exhibit.

The orbits of asteroids are closely monitored from the ground. There is an international program for protection from potentially dangerous guests. Everything is thought out in it, from nuclear missile bombardment on approach to the painting of a space object, which, according to scientists, should change the orbit of the asteroid.

But let’s return to the hero of our essay, Timur Kryachko. Using the private Astrotel-Caucasus telescope installed on the territory of the North Caucasus Astronomical Station of Kazan State University, on November 28, 2010, they discovered an asteroid measuring about one hundred meters, the minimum distance between its orbit and the Earth’s orbit is 0.0032 astronomical units. (479,000 km). Its next meeting with Earth will take place in 2056. It is worth noting that in the list of known potentially dangerous asteroids, sorted by the minimum distance between the orbits of the earth and the asteroid, the 2010 WV8 discovered by him ranks high, 110th place out of 1168.

In scientific circles they take the problem very seriously. For example, there has been serious discussion of how to place a large solar array into orbit around an asteroid so that the asteroid hits it and it becomes stuck on its surface, reflecting the sun's rays. Science fiction writers talk about spaceships capable of taking the asteroid further away. But the solution to the problems is theoretical, and is still on the tables of astronomers and physicists.

In 2011, Timur Kryachko, during observations with the same telescope, discovered two more near-Earth asteroids (2009 HZ67 and 2009 OS5), but they are not among the potentially dangerous. And in total he has more than 50 discovered minor planets! Cinema, science fiction and planets According to existing rules, unlike the streets and cities of the Earth, small planets are never renamed! And it’s so great that the stars, planets and galaxies are completely unaffected by political preferences, love or dislike for this or that person after whom the object is named. And it doesn’t matter whether he or she is a hero, an astronomer, a writer, a composer, a politician. And now, forever between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, the orbit of a small planet with the name of the beloved director Timur Kryachko is located!

More than eleven films were directed by Richard Viktorov. Many of his films in the science fiction genre made many boys and girls peer into the sky. Wikipedia says about him: “He entered the history of Soviet cinema science fiction thanks to the dilogy “Moscow-Cassiopeia” and “Youths in the Universe,” as well as the film “Through Thorns to the Stars,” which was significantly ahead of its time in terms of issues. Without modern technical and computer means, already in the 1970s R. Viktorov achieved in his films the absolute verisimilitude of scenes in space and weightlessness - even the cosmonauts could not distinguish screen weightlessness from real one.”

The asteroid, named after the beloved director, was discovered by Timur Kryachko at one of the telescopes of the observatory in Zelenchuk in the Caucasus on September 26, 1995 and, according to the rules, initially received a preliminary number - 1995 SN29. After many years of observations and obtaining data on orbital elements, the Minor Planet Center registered the asteroid under a permanent number - 8717.

When this material was being prepared, asteroid (8717) “Richviktorov” was located in the constellation Virgo, not far from the border of the constellation Libra. It has a 19th magnitude - 10-15 km across. Names of new stars Timur Kryachko also discovered several variable stars. He is one of the very first group of amateur astronomers in Russia who discovered a supernova: in collaboration with friends, on August 30, 2008, on the territory of our country, he registered a supernova explosion and on September 3, 2008, he observed the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst.

Thus, the name of Timur Kryachko is included in the names of white dwarfs.

Here are some characteristics of these stars.

Variable star system (intermediate polar) Kryachko-Korotky Intermediate polar (also transition polar, DQ Hercules type variable) is one of the types of cataclysmic variables of binary star systems. Intermediate polars are one of the types of cataclysmic variables in stellar systems. This is a variable and very close binary system (double star system J2216.8+4647) in the constellation Lizard, which was discovered by Timur Kryachko with Stas Korotky in March 2006 at the Kazan astronomical station, where the Astrotel observatory is located. The white dwarf is the first candidate among the cataclysmic variables for the type of intermediate polar (variable.

Kryachko-Short).

Extragalactic supernova 2011if (CBET 1485) Kryachko, Korotkov, Satovskiy Extragalactic supernova 2011if Kryachko, Korotkiy, Satovskiy was discovered in 2012 by a group of amateur astronomers at the Astrotel Observatory, Astronomical Mountain Station of KSU.
Fellow astronomers - here's to a new supernova!

Page confirming our discovery by French observers François Kugel and Claudine Rinner (C.Rinner and F.Kugel).

Today, the “track record” of supernova discoveries involving Kryachko has expanded to five new “suns”: 2011if Kryachko, Korotkiy, Satovskiy; 2011hx Kryachko, Korotkiy, Satovskiy; 2009lt Kryachko, Satovskiy; 2009ln Kryachko, Satovskiy; 2008fe Korotkiy, Kryachko, Satovskiy.

Planet of Timur Kryachko Friends-astronomers also noted in the starry sky the name of a fellow Voronezh resident - the minor planet Timur Kryachko. The asteroid was discovered by researcher Vitaly Nevsky at the Tzec Maun Observatory (USA, NM) on December 10, 2009 using remote access and registered in the asteroid catalog No. 269589 on December 9, 2011 at a meeting of the commission of the Committee on the Nomenclature of Small Bodies of the Solar System.

The asteroid has a diameter of approximately four kilometers. At the time of discovery, it was located at a distance of 317 million kilometers from the Earth. The asteroid moves in a circular orbit, making one revolution around the Sun every 5.26 years.

Our hero-discoverer is not many years old. He was born on September 23, 1970. He still has many years of new discoveries ahead of him.

Vladimir Eletskikh

Several kilograms of a substance of extraterrestrial origin – Timur Kryachko returned with this catch from an expedition to Chile. A resident of Reutov is the first professional meteorite hunter in Russia. The Moscow Region Today correspondent took a look at the scientist’s collection and found out how to identify a cosmic body and whether it can be found in the Moscow region.

ASTEROID-VAMPIRE

Reutov resident Timur Kryachko is well known in the world community of professional astronomers. For a long time he specialized in the study of asteroids, and even assigned names to several of them.

“At the request of my wife, I named the asteroid in honor of Robert Patisson (the leading actor in the movie saga about vampires “Twilight” - Ed.), but this was only possible on the second attempt,” Timur laughs. – The names of asteroids are approved by a special commission of the International Astronomical Union, which includes 12 of the world’s leading scientists. At first they rejected this idea, but I insisted. I had to present a detailed list of the actor’s services to art.

Kryachko calls himself a “free artist.” He owns a business selling telescopes, but for research projects and expeditions, as a rule, he has to look for additional sources of funding.

ALTERNATIVE SPACE

Over time, interest in bodies of cosmic origin brought the enthusiast into the ranks of meteorite hunters. Timur Kryachko became the first such specialist in Russia.

“Meteoritics is an alternative astronautics,” the researcher believes. – Expeditions are sent into space for extraterrestrial matter, which cost tens of billions of dollars. Although it flies to Earth itself and lies under our feet.

In search of the fallen “space,” meteorite hunters go to the most arid stone deserts. A real Klondike for them is Oman. But recently, the path to this state in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula, alas, has been closed. Having discovered that a real boom had begun, the authorities tightened legislation and banned the export of cosmic bodies from the country. Now thousands of people explore the territory of Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, Niger and Chad every day. A whole industry for searching for meteorites has formed there. Dealers buy them from local residents and then take them to the international market.

500 KM ACROSS THE DESERT ON FOAL

“Meteorites fall the same everywhere,” says Kryachko. “But in the desert they can lie on the surface for hundreds of thousands of years, and in other places they are lost in the very first years: they rot, rust, and go under the turf. It is for this reason that the chances of finding a meteorite in the Moscow region are very small. To find the most commonplace specimen, you will have to walk through the forests for 50 years.

Therefore, Timur goes on expeditions far beyond Russia.

In the desert, identifying a meteorite is quite simple - rare black “stones” on white sand are visible from afar. The researcher traveled all over North Africa, and on the eve of our meeting he returned from an expedition in the Atacama Desert. This area in Chile is famous for its high density of meteorites - one per hectare.

The scientist basically conducts all searches on foot. You have to cover about 40 km through the desert per day. And so on every day throughout the entire expedition, which usually lasts at least two weeks. The only tools I have are a stick with a magnet at the end.

– In 12 days in Chile, I found more than 70 meteorites. Over time, this turns into a routine, so I try to discover something exotic: a meteorite that is too magnetic or completely “fresh,” the hunter admits.

SHOW YOUR PASSPORT!

The Reutov resident considers his main find to be a 30-gram sample discovered in Chile a year ago. At first, the inconspicuous rusty piece interested the researcher only because it was much more magnetic than usual. Upon closer examination, it turned out that this is a unique specimen, the likes of which have not yet been found on the planet. By the way, the cost of cosmic matter greatly depends on its abundance and varies from 1 to 1000 US dollars per gram.

“This meteorite lay in the desert for at least 20 thousand years,” Kirill places two stone-like objects on my palm, one of which seems to be covered with rust. – Do you see how the surface has been polished by the wind? And this one lay there for about a thousand years - it still has a “crust” left.

Communication takes place at a city festival in the Central Park of Reutov. The researcher came here to tell children about his discoveries. The guys listen with their mouths open, taking turns looking into microscopes - they have plates with sections of cosmic bodies.

– I am trying to create a system for registration and scientific research of meteorites in Russia, because there are practically no specialists in this field. At the same time, I’m figuring out how to involve young people in this,” adds Kryachko.

Officially, a meteorite becomes such only after it receives a name and passport. Registration with the International Meteor Committee is only possible if the object has been examined in one of the scientific institutes equipped with the appropriate equipment, the cost of which can reach a million euros.

Most of the meteorites found have a mass from a couple of grams to several kilograms. The largest of those found is the Goba meteorite, weighing about 60 tons. Scientists believe that 5–6 tons of meteorites fall to the Earth per day.

ON A NOTE

There is no international legislation in the field of meteoritics; each country sets the conditions for searching and exporting meteorites independently. In Russia, meteorites can be searched for, distributed and transported within the country. For export abroad, permission from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation may be required.