Thousands of years ago, a cosmic cannonball about the size of a small refrigerator plummeted to Earth in East Africa, near what today is the village of El Ali in Somalia. The 13.6-metric-ton lump of metal—thought to be the world's ninth-largest meteorite—eventually became a part of local folklore, serving for centuries as a landmark as well as a rare ancient source of high-grade iron for tools. Now, however, the El Ali meteorite has gone missing, looted by warlords and allegedly smuggled to a warehouse in China for piecemeal—or en masse—private sale.
Our top story this week details the long, strange and tragic trip of this stolen space rock, the science at stake as it sits in legal limbo, and its uncertain place in the ethically murky, unquestionably messy world of modern-day meteorite hunting. Small samples of the El Ali meteorite provided to researchers both before and after its theft show the space rock contains several new minerals that don't occur naturally on Earth, making it a high-priority target for further, deeper study. But such studies are unlikely to happen without research institutions literally buying in to the El Ali meteorite's shameful provenance, paying its dubious current "owners" for the privilege and further fueling the larger issue of cultural looting.
The debate over what to do—or, for that matter, what even can be done within the confines of international law—highlights the complex choices facing meteoriticists and other scientists studying vanishingly rare, often ill-gotten specimens that bear rich cultural legacies. Faced with ethical uncertainties, is the best choice simply to abstain? As one source notes in our exclusive piece: "In some cases, we are just closing our eyes. We don't want to take on the reality of the problem because if we do, there will be much less material to study."
What do you think? Thoughts? Questions? Let me know via e-mail (lbillings@sciam.com), Twitter or Bluesky.
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.
—Lee Billings
