Scientists uncover 3,000-year-old arrowhead made out of ‘alien iron’

Scientists in Switzerland made an astonishing 3,000-year-old discover, discovering an arrowhead being saved in a museum was made out of “alien iron”.‌ The weapon – made from meteorite – was discovered by researchers from the University of Bern at an historical Bronze Age website by the identify of Mörigen in Switzerland.

Geologists examined the fabric composition of the artefact, which was discovered to comprise aluminium-26, which is an isotope generally discovered within the photo voltaic system, however not naturally occurring on Earth.

‌There have solely been discoveries of three meteorites made from the identical composition on Earth, in Spain, the Czech Republic and Estonia.

The specialists are of the view that the extremely ornate weapon is made from the Estonian rock, which might have landed round 1,400 miles away.

The group of scientists wrote in a examine of the weapon: “The style of the iron arrowhead strongly resembles that of bronze arrowheads from the same find complex, even though the fabrication process was very different.

“The attached carbon-rich organic material likely represents remnants of tar, probably wood (birch?) tar, indicating that it was fastened to an arrow at some point.”

‌The weapon was initially discovered within the nineteenth century at Lake of Biel and was being held within the Bern History Museum.

‌However, scientists determined to check its composition utilizing trendy methods.

They initially believed the area rock used to make the blade got here from the Twannberg meteorite that landed in Switzerland about 160,000 years in the past.

However, additional evaluation of meteorites with the identical composition discovered this was not the case.

They mentioned: “The Mörigen arrowhead must be derived from a large (minimum 2 tons pre-atmospheric mass) IAB iron meteorite based on gamma spectrometry and elemental composition.

‌“Among large IAB meteorites from Europe, three have a chemical composition consistent with the Mörigen arrowhead: Bohumilitz (Czech Republic), Retuerte de Bullaque (Spain) and Kaalijarv (Estonia).

“Kaalijarv is a large meteorite that produced a series of impact craters (the largest, called Kaalijärv, is 110 m [360 feet] in diameter, note different spelling for meteorite and crater) on the island of Saarema in Estonia.”