Ralph Harvey holds a shooting star in his mitten. It’s a meteorite, a piece of outer space some 4.5 billion years old. This rock has seen the infancy of the solar system, the extinction of the dinosaurs, the birth of Dick Clark. Meteorites are without rival the oldest things on Earth. To gaze upon this rock, you cannot help feeling a sense of awe. You might feel other things as well, if only you weren’t numb from riding around on a Ski-doo in a -40 degree windchill for the past three hours.
Meteorite hunting is not for wimps. The best places to look are also the coldest and windiest. You need very old ice, and you need wind, lots of it, strong and unrelenting. Antarctica fits the bill. This year, the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) has set up camp out beyond the Transantarctic Mountains, smack dab nowhere on something ...
