MOSCOW, July 29 The discovery of a meteorite that broke away from the Earth, but after some time returned to our planet, is a unique event, but does not contradict the laws of physics, said Nathan Eismont, a leading researcher at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Earlier, scientists from the University of Aix-Marseille in France reported the discovery of the first boomerang meteorite that broke off the Earth in a collision with an asteroid, spent some time in space, and then fell back. The meteorite NWA 13188 was discovered in the Sahara Desert. His analysis showed that he was ejected into space as a result of a collision with an asteroid about ten thousand years ago, and then fell back to Earth.
“Of course, such things always require very careful study, there are many circumstances that sometimes destroy the original picture. Most likely, of course, we are close to the fact that this is true, given the authority of scientists. There are no contradictions here, as with some humanoids «Aismond said.
According to him, in principle, the trajectories of meteor showers look as if meteorites should bombard the Earth every day. However, almost all of them burn up in the atmosphere and cannot reach the Earth's surface, Eismont said. There are cases when asteroids from Mars flew to us, he added.
A researcher at the IKI called the find of French scientists interesting because the asteroid was only under the influence of particles of the near-solar space for quite a long time. Of the same interest, according to him, are lunar rocks. On the ground, such rocks cannot be found because the surface evolves, the scientist specified.
He recalled the ICE satellite launched by the United States in the 70s (later renamed ISEE-3), which spent some time at the libration (balance of gravity) L1 at a distance of about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, and then independently returned to our planet. Eismont emphasized that even if an artificial object returned to Earth after several decades, the asteroid could repeat the same journey in several tens of thousands of years.
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