Fallen from the Sky

Fallen from the Sky

This image results from the superposition of two photographs taken, the one at Rennes le Chateau, Aude, the other one in Saint-Sauveur, Haute-Garonne. It reveals the features of an « aerolite » stranded on July 10, 1914 in grounds of this village located a few kilometers north of Toulouse. It emphasizes its close relationship with the celestial objects - in particular, the solid bodies of our solar system from which every meteorites come. For long, these stones fallen from the sky were the only samples of extraterrestrial material available on Earth. The study of their chemical and isotopic compositions has delivered valuable information regarding their provenance - the Moon, Mars, a planetoid which longer exists or even a fragment of asteroid -, the formation processes of rocky planets as well as the composition of the primordial solar nebula. Moreover, the analysis of a few of them revealed the presence of amino acids, the building blocks of life, thereby powering the theory of panspermia according to which life on Earth would be of extraterrestrial origin.