New Delhi, New research has revealed that around 5,000 meteorites are being lost in Antarctica due to melting ice due to climate change.
Scientists are calling for a major international effort to preserve the scientific value of meteorites as these space fragments provide insights into the "mysteries of the universe" as well as the origins of life on Earth.
Scientists said the Earth is losing meteorites at five times the rate at which they are being recovered from Antarctica – the most abundant place to find meteorites – and stressed the need to "quicker and intensify" recovery efforts. Gave.
Using satellite observations, AI and climate models, the research team calculated that for every tenth degree increase in global temperature, an average of about 9,000 meteorites disappear from the surface of the ice sheet.
They further estimated that by 2050, about a quarter of Antarctic meteorites – estimated to number between 300,000–800,000 – could be lost to glacial melting and about three-quarters to a high-warming scenario before the storms subside. May be destroyed under.century.
The researchers said sharply cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the only way to preserve the remaining meteorites.
"We need to accelerate efforts to recover Antarctic meteorites. The loss of Antarctic meteorites is much like the loss of data that scientists obtain from ice cores collected from vanishing glaciers – once When they disappear, they reveal some of the mysteries of the universe." said Harry Zeccolari, who co-led the study while working in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.Meteorites absorb more heat than the surrounding ice. As some of this heat is transferred to the ice, some of it melts locally, causing the space piece to sink beneath the surface of the ice sheet. The researchers reported that after sinking even to very shallow depths, meteorites can no longer be detected and are thus "lost to science".
"Even when the temperature of the ice is well below zero, dark meteorites warp so much in the sun that they can melt the ice directly beneath the meteorite. Through this process, hotter meteorites become IC Forms a local depression and disappears completely with time.Beneath the surface,” said Veronica Tollenaar of Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and co-lead of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"As atmospheric temperatures increase, the surface temperature of the IC increases, which speeds up this process, as less heat from meteorites is required to melt the ice locally," Tollenaar said.
To date, about 60 percent of all meteorites found on Earth have been collected from the surface of Antarctic ice, the researchers said.
He explained that the flow of the ice sheet concentrates meteorites into "meteorite trapped areas", where their deeper layer allows easier detection.
The team said data-driven analysis to identify areas with unknown meteorite strandings, as well as mapping areas of exposed blue ice where meteorites are often found, could improve the efficiency of meteorite recovery.
Scientists are calling for a major international effort to preserve the scientific value of meteorites as these space fragments provide insights into the "mysteries of the universe" as well as the origins of life on Earth.
Scientists said the Earth is losing meteorites at five times the rate at which they are being recovered from Antarctica – the most abundant place to find meteorites – and stressed the need to "quicker and intensify" recovery efforts. Gave.
Using satellite observations, AI and climate models, the research team calculated that for every tenth degree increase in global temperature, an average of about 9,000 meteorites disappear from the surface of the ice sheet.
They further estimated that by 2050, about a quarter of Antarctic meteorites – estimated to number between 300,000–800,000 – could be lost to glacial melting and about three-quarters to a high-warming scenario before the storms subside. May be destroyed under.century.
The researchers said sharply cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the only way to preserve the remaining meteorites.
"We need to accelerate efforts to recover Antarctic meteorites. The loss of Antarctic meteorites is much like the loss of data that scientists obtain from ice cores collected from vanishing glaciers – once When they disappear, they reveal some of the mysteries of the universe." said Harry Zeccolari, who co-led the study while working in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.Meteorites absorb more heat than the surrounding ice. As some of this heat is transferred to the ice, some of it melts locally, causing the space piece to sink beneath the surface of the ice sheet. The researchers reported that after sinking even to very shallow depths, meteorites can no longer be detected and are thus "lost to science".
"Even when the temperature of the ice is well below zero, dark meteorites warp so much in the sun that they can melt the ice directly beneath the meteorite. Through this process, hotter meteorites become IC Forms a local depression and disappears completely with time.Beneath the surface,” said Veronica Tollenaar of Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and co-lead of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"As atmospheric temperatures increase, the surface temperature of the IC increases, which speeds up this process, as less heat from meteorites is required to melt the ice locally," Tollenaar said.
To date, about 60 percent of all meteorites found on Earth have been collected from the surface of Antarctic ice, the researchers said.
He explained that the flow of the ice sheet concentrates meteorites into "meteorite trapped areas", where their deeper layer allows easier detection.
The team said data-driven analysis to identify areas with unknown meteorite strandings, as well as mapping areas of exposed blue ice where meteorites are often found, could improve the efficiency of meteorite recovery.
