GSI Director General Asit Saha.
Credit: X/@GeologyIndia
Kolkata: The Geological Survey of India has launched a national meteorite repository at its central headquarters here, offering a modern infrastructure and enhanced facilities to showcase the specimens from space, an official said.
Inaugurated recently by GSI Director General Asit Saha, the ‘Meteorite Gallery’ represents significant advancement in the preservation and exhibition of meteorites in India, a spokesperson of the scientific agency said.
The repository houses a “rare and diverse” collection of 643 meteorites from around the world, curated within the Meteorite and Planetary Science Division (MPSD) under Mission-IV, Kolkata, he said.
The gallery exhibits a wide variety of meteorite types, from ordinary chondrites and carbonaceous chondrites to achondrites, including a Martian meteorite known as ‘Shergotty’, and iron meteorites, the official said.
Among the collection, 119 specimens are from meteorite falls and finds across India.
The oldest meteorite in the collection is ‘Ensisheim’, an ordinary chondrite that fell in Alsace, France, on November 7, 1492 while the recent addition is the ‘Kopargaon’, an iron chondrite that fell in Maharashtra on January 24, 2023, the GSI said.
Saha said the new gallery is set to become a centre for public engagement, education and research, attracting students, researchers and meteorite enthusiasts from across the country.