:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/25EZ4I4G2FBTVBXP5BUFGJ3Q3M.jpg "Astronomical smuggling or trans-Andean theft? : Customs seized a meteorite that a Cordoba retiree tried to introduce from Chile 1")
As far as we know, there is no established tariff for the import of meteorites, but the truth is that on February 2, customs detected them at the international pass of Agua Negra, at almost 5 000 meters above sea level, in the middle of the Cordillera de los Andes, that a car driven by a Cordovan pensioner who entered from Chile with his car loaded with stones, that one of them was neither more nor less than a meteorite, as confirmed after a series of analyzes by the Argentine Geological and Mining Service (segemar).
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The event happened in Concepción del Uruguay, where they were discovered by the naval prefecture while loading the cargo on a boat with the intention of crossing into the neighboring country.
Noting the large number of stones on the back seat of the vehicle, the customs officers told the driver that they had to prohibit their entry into the country, for phytosanitary reasons. The pensioner agreed, but asked for an exception, that they allow him to enter a particular, shiny stone.
It is a rock of 12.5 kilos and 27 centimeters long that caught the attention of customs officers. Due to the apparent lack of correspondence between weight and height, they suspected that it was cultural or heritage property, they withheld it and filed a report.
The suspicious stone was transferred to Buenos Aires and sent for analysis by Segemar, who concluded that it was a meteorite.
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In their report, the scientists involved verified “the presence of depressions which “correspond to the regmaglyptus formed by the ablation when the meteorite enters the Earth’s atmosphere” and explained to Customs that its composition had an iron/nickel ratio not found on Earth. .
The pensioner agreed to leave other stones, but asked for a waiver to seize one in particular, which was shiny in appearance.
Since Law 26,306 of the “Cultural Heritage Registration Regime” establishes that meteorites and other celestial bodies that are found or enter Argentine territory in the future, its airspace and jurisdictional waters are cultural property , they are included in the effects and scope of an International Convention on the Measures to Prohibit and Prevent the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property”, the meteorite in question was, of course, d importation prohibited, according to article 610 of the Customs Code. A contraband non-plus-ultra, but not necessarily for profit. Customs has thus been framed in the Resolution on the illicit traffic of cultural goods”, of the World Customs Organization.
The Segemar report, produced by a group of scientists (Andrés Lopez, Sabrina Costa, Patricia Claramunt and Mariana Constanteand signed by Liliana Gonzalezdirector of analytical services, specifies that the stone has “a characteristic roughness and a surface layer treated with a varnish, probably of the silicone type, to avoid possible alterations” and that “by its macroscopic morphology and its physical characteristics it corresponds to a meteorite”, which highlights “its high weight and tenacity” and “its irregular shape, characterized by the presence of cavities that give it a wavy appearance”.
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These lows, the report explains, “correspond to regmagliptes formed by ablation as the meteorite enters the Earth’s atmosphere.”
In conclusion, the report states, “After macroscopic and microscopic observation of surface, morphological, internal structure characteristics and also, by analysis of chemical element data, the sample is classified as siderite octahedrite “Meteorite”, consisting of analyte, iron, nickel, silicon, calcium, phosphorus and germanium.
The retired Cordovan found himself without his astronomical chick and it remains to define the possible return of the meteorite to the Transandean territory, if necessary.
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