Although there is no written information, the first recorded meteorite that fell in our country was from the 1730s-1740s, when Bulgaria was under Ottoman rule.
It was measured in oki and this is the first information about a meteorite on the territory of Bulgaria. This is what the researcher and scientist Prof. Hristo Pimpirev said before Bulgaria ON AIR.
He recalled that the bulk of the space bodies come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and are considered to be part of a protoplanet. Some of the bodies are attracted by the Earth’s gravity and thus fall into the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Meteors burn when the rocky body passes through the atmosphere. Since ancient times, they have been considered divine”, explained Prof. Pimpirev and recalled that some of the meteorites can be very dangerous, giving an example of the meteorite that fell 65 million years ago in the Gulf of Mexico, when the then dominant species – the dinosaurs – died out.
“Fortunately, such large meteorites fall 3-4 times every 100 million years,” explained the professor.
“These are things that a person cannot fight. The meteorite does not choose where to fall, wherever the Earth attracts it, it falls there,” added the scientist.
Prof. Pimpirev noted that meteorites are most easily found in Antarctica. Since in the rest of the Earth they fall mainly in the oceans or forested areas, they are difficult to find there.
“While in the white wasteland, it is a black body that stands out. Special Antarctic expeditions are made by private collectors, as the price of one piece reaches 70 thousand dollars,” he explained, adding that the most valuable are those with Martian origin.
Prof. Pimpirev said there are three types of meteorites – iron, composed of more than 90 percent iron, iron-stone, with about 50 percent iron, and stone – the most common on Earth.
In our country, there are often scams with meteorites, it became clear from the words of Kiril Stamenov from the Bulgarian Association of Prospectors of Native Gold and Meteorites. He said that there are often pieces of meteorites for sale on online platforms, but there are also scams.
“They call me to ask me from abroad if they lie so much in Bulgaria,” said Stamenov.
One of the things that make meteorites so valuable is the so-called an impact diamond that forms after the processes that occur when the body falls to Earth and passes through the Earth’s atmosphere.
He explained that 300-400 grams of meteorite is traded from 1 to 4 euros.
To avoid fraud, the first most important test is whether there is a magnetic field. Then tests are done for the presence of iron or nickel. Research is also done for the presence of cobalt, but this is done with a very expensive method – X-ray spectral analysis, which costs about 30-40 thousand dollars.
Stamenov explained that finding a meteorite is extremely difficult, as is finding native gold.
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2023-07-13 19:00:00
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