SOLAR SYSTEM
Where on Earth can I go meteorite hunting?
Small meteorites fall to Earth all the time, though many burn up on entering our atmosphere
When we were producing the Meteorite Men show, Steve [Arnold] and I typically came up with a list of places we’d love to go at the start of each new season and the production team would maybe allow us to do five international episodes and three in the US to fit with the budget. There were places we wanted to go but couldn’t because it was too expensive, too dangerous or there were legal reasons such as government restrictions. But Antarctica would be top of the list – thousands of meteorites have been found there. We also know that giant iron meteorites have been found in Cape York, Greenland, and that the Namib Desert in Namibia is a fantastic meteorite site. But there are strict government regulations in West Africa about moving or removing meteorites, and because we always do everything above board, we wouldn’t do what some dodgy people do in this business and smuggle them out. That’s wrong for numerous reasons: it means cultural property disappears and important meteorites that should have been studied aren’t available to academia.