CUTTING EDGE

Drones used to hunt for meteorites

Using drones could improve our odds of finding ‘fresh’ meteorites

Studying the composition of meteorites provides vital clues about what was happening in the early Solar System and how the planets in it formed. By far the greatest insights are provided by meteorites, particularly the fallen space rocks that can be collected immediately, before they have a chance to become weathered and contaminated by lying on Earth’s surface. Over recent years, automated networks of sky-watching cameras have enormously increased the rate at which meteors can be detected while they’re still fireballs falling through Earth’s atmosphere. In some cases, the fireball’s trajectory can be extrapolated forwards to predict roughly where the meteorite