NOT JUST ANY ROCK
A March 13, 2014 picture of a chondrite (a type of meteorite) found in the city of Jinju, at the Korea Polar Research Institute in Incheon, Seoul. Image credit: AFP PHOTO / The Korea Polar Research Institute
Would you like to own a piece of rock from outer space? If you do, you're not alone.
Hundreds of people in South Korea would like to own a space rock too. And they have been scrambling madly all over hills and rice fields in search of meteorites near Jinju, a city in South Korea. After the first two space rocks were found (weighing 9 kilograms and 4 kilograms), scientists tested them and confirmed that they had indeed come from space.
A South Korean scientist checking a chondrite (a type of meteorite) found in the city of Jinju, Korea, at the Korea Polar Research Institute in Incheon, Seoul. Image credit: AFP PHOTO / The Korea Polar Research Institute
The wild rock hunt started after a rare meteor shower near Jinju on March 9, 2014. Some people even use GPS (Global Positioning System) devices and metal detectors to help them find these very special meteorites, called chondrites.
Wonder why they are so desperate to find these space rocks? It's because the media (newspapers, TV and radio) had said that chondrites can bring a person wealth or luck.
Meteor showers occur when hundreds of meteors - fragments of dust and rock that burn up as they pass through the Earth's atmosphere - light up the sky in a spectacular display. Meteorites are meteors that do not burn up completely, surviving the fall to Earth.
A South Korean scientist checking a chondrite (a type of meteorite) found in the southeastern city of Jinju, at the Korea Polar Research Institute in Incheon, Seoul. Image credit: AFP PHOTO / The Korea Polar Research Institute
In October 2013, a gigantic meteorite was pulled out of a lake in Russia. It was a meteorite from the Chelyabinsk meteor, and it weighed more than 570 kilograms! Read all about it by clicking on this link.
Featured image: A chondrite (a type of meteorite) found in the southeastern city of Jinju, at the Korea Polar Research Institute in Incheon, west of Seoul. Image credit: AFP PHOTO / The Korea Polar Research Institute
