Field guide in a blue ice area during a mission to take ice samples. Photo taken during the 2023-2024 fieldwork mission of the Instituto Antártico Chileno to Union Glacier, Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica. Credit: Veronica Tollenaar, Université libre de Bruxelles
Ice sampling on a blue ice area in mountainous terrain. Photo taken during the 2023-2024 fieldwork mission of the Instituto Antártico Chileno to Union Glacier, Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica. Credit: Fernando Inostroza Méndez, Center for Antarctic Affairs of the Chilean Army.
Meteorites are fragments from space that provide unique information about our solar system. Antarctica is the most prolific place to find meteorites, and to date, about 60 percent of all meteorites ever found on Earth have been collected from the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet. The flow of the ice sheet concentrates meteorites in so-called “meteorite stranding zones”, where their dark crust allows them to be easily detected.