Man ‘ecstatic’ after possible meteorite find at Lake Tekapo
A Wellington man is over the moon after discovering what may be the 10th meteorite found in New Zealand.
A group of more than 20 in Lake Takapō/ Tekapo set out early yesterday to find the meteorite after a fireball was seen across the sky over North Otago and South Canterbury about 9pm on March 13.
It has been 20 years since a meteorite was found in New Zealand, and 99 years since one was discovered in South Canterbury. The last, in 1925, was found in Morven by William Stewart.
Yesterday, Jack Weterings, 29, was “ecstatic” to have discovered the peculiar rock even before reaching his team’s designated search area. “I’m pretty ecstatic to find something so cool and rare so quickly,” he said.
“I’m truly amazed by it. We were heading to our search area and I looked down, and the rock just stood out and was unusual, and did not match the landscape in the area ... It was wedged into the soil. Half in and half out.”
A keen follower of astronomy, Weterings said he just happened to be in the area when he heard about the search and decided to join in.
University of Otago geologist Marshall Croft Palmer, who was also part of the search party, said there was a 90% chance it was the meteorite, because of its high nickel content.
Search organiser and Fireballs Aotearoa spokesperson Steve Wyn-Harris said the rock would be transported to the university and put through analysis, including a spectrometer.
“We’re highly certain this is the meteorite we were looking for,” Wyn-Harris said.
Wyn-Harris said the entire search group was pretty excited with the find.
“We split into groups and we were walking to our individual search areas when Jack found the meteorite. I was 200-300m ahead of him, and turned back and saw that he was looking down at something. I went over and said ‘it looks like a meteorite’.”
Following analysis, Wyn-Harris, the meteorite could be donated to a museum for the public to view.
He added that Weterings would receive a Fireballs Aotearoa camera for finding it the same camera that captured the fireball last week.
Fireballs Aotearoa, which had organised the search, aimed to recover freshly fallen meteorites.
“Calculations by Fireballs Aotearoa indicate 0.5kg of the rock survived its dramatic journey through Earth’s atmosphere and is now lying somewhere in the Mackenzie Country,” the group said on social media before the find.
The group’s calculations indicated it had landed somewhere south of Lake Takapō/ Tekapo.
Meteors or “shooting stars” were meteoroids that entered Earth’s atmosphere at very high speed.
These rocks heated up during the process and produced a streak of light. Otago University geologist Professor James Scott explained: “A fireball is formed by the air in front of the rock becoming compressed and heating to the point at which it melts and vaporises the margins of the rock.”
“In 2004 a meteorite came through the roof of an Auckland house during daylight, but the fireball wasn’t seen,” the Fireballs Aotearoa website said.