"
Calgary To
scientists, they are priceless clues about the origins of
life, but now, six
years after he found some frozen meteorite fragments
that weigh roughly as
much as two blocks of butter, a Canadian has
cashed in.
The
price tag: $750,000.
And as a bonus, the space rocks that landed
in Canada and were poised
to go to the United States are staying
here.
It's been a little tortuous at times, Jim Brook said
yesterday from
his home in Atlin, in the northwest corner of British
Columbia, not far
from where the meteorite crashed to Earth.
There was no significant interest in Canada for quite a while, and
eventually, we were able to get something lined up, so I'm glad they're
staying, Mr. Brook said.
The meteorite fragments will be
housed at the University of Alberta
in Edmonton and the Royal Ontario Museum
in Toronto.
For almost seven million years, the space rock
travelled at 10
kilometres a second and covered a distance of a half-billion
kilometres
before it collided with the Earth's atmosphere in January,
2000.
The 200-tonne rock was between 25 and 30 kilometres above
the ground
when it exploded and emerged as a fireball over parts of British
Columbia and Yukon.
Several hundred pieces, some as large as
footballs, landed on frozen
Tagish Lake, which straddles the B.C. and Yukon
boundary.
Miraculously, about 850 grams of the Tagish Lake
meteorite remained
in a pristine state.
The fragments were
frozen and uncontaminated despite a fiery descent
to Earth.
This material is extremely rare, said Sonia Lismer, manager of
movable
cultural property with Canadian Heritage, which kicked in more
than $437,000
to keep the meteorite in Canada.
Mr. Brook, who is a resort
operator and has a scientific background,
missed the light show, but a week
later, he spotted the dark chunks of
rock while driving his pickup across
the lake.
He knew not to contaminate them by touching them with
his bare hands.
It's pretty amazing when you consider that they
came down right
there on the lake and at that time of year, when there was
some snow
around, he said at the time.
The whole thing was
a real stroke of luck.
He put the rock fragments in his
freezer.
Researchers determined that the meteorite, which is
fragile and more
ice-like than rock-hard, was the first to come from a thick
band of
asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.
NASA scientists
found previously unseen organic material in the
carbonaceous chondrite
fragments. They detected tiny globules of
hydrocarbons, which were formed
long before our own solar system and
are the perfect homes for primitive
organisms.
Under Canadian law, meteorites belong to the person
who finds them.
Mr. Brook began shopping the fragments
around.
He found buyers in the United States, but Ottawa turned
down his
application for an export permit because it aims to keep cultural
property of outstanding significance and national importance at
home.
Last June, the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review
Board, an
independent tribunal, gave federally designated Canadian
institutions
six months to match the market value of the rocks. If they
failed, Mr.
Brook could sell them as he pleased.
The
University of Alberta, the Royal Ontario Museum, Natural
Resources Canada
and the Canadian Space Agency began fundraising, but
applied for federal
grants to make up a $313,000 gap.
The grants were approved late
last year and announced yesterday.
It's going to enable a
really wonderful camaraderie of experts
sharing this material for research
and it's going to build on the
existing research that has already taken
place with NASA and that
research is going to extend globally, Ms. Lismer
said.
The University of Alberta has 650 grams of the fragments
and the ROM
has 200 grams. The ROM will display a 52-gram
fragment.
Christopher Herd, a professor with the department of
Earth and
atmospheric sciences at the University of Alberta, said the frozen
fragments will allow researchers to see organic molecules that are
naturally within the meteorite as well as volatile substances perhaps
extraterrestrial ices.
It gives us a snapshot of what was
happening when the solar system
formed 4½ billion years ago and it's unlike
any other meteorite even of
its own kind, Dr. Herd
said.
"
Sadly, in Portugal, and in contrast, any
ignorant american "enterpreneur" with (relatively) much money, can buy for a
(relatively) few peanuts a rare meteorite from the local ignorant
farmers, making a substancial personal profit, enough to start a career
in piracy, all this as easily as going to shop in the local
supermarket.
As I am very naive, I imagined, when
I heard the news in 98, that the total mass of the meteorite of Ourique was
deposited in the university of Lisbon (yes, there is more than ignorants, around
here), but no, it was saved from our 3th world ignorance by the hands of an
american specialist ( he speaks a bit of spanish, and heard about
chondrules, I think). This is a shame to my country.
Armando Afonso
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