Campo Del Cielo; The Valley of the Heavens
Nearly 4000 years ago, a vast metallic meteorite plummeted at a right angle to the Earth’s surface forming a 1350 sq kilometre crater. The Campo del Cielo, located in the Chaco region of Argentina, is punctuated by the remains of the impact, with the site originally being called ‘Valley of the Heavens’ by the indigenous people of Argentina.
A meteorite is formally defined as a solid body of subplanetary mass that either is in space or has come from it and retains it’s cosmic character. Many of the meteorites from the Campo Del Cielo region have softened edges as a result of terrestrialization, i.e smoothing due to the presence of water and aquatic organisms. This process creates beautiful and abstract smoothed objects.
Campo del Cielo was home to the third-largest meteorite ever discovered, named ‘Gancedo’ and weighing in at 30 tonnes, with the largest ever, ‘The Hoba’, being found in Namibia and weighing 60 tonnes. Larger fragments of meteorite retrieved from Campo del Cielo can be seen all over the world in museums and scientific institutions; however, meteorites from the site are also often held in private collections.
When 15th century Spanish conquistadors entered the Chaco province (now modern day Argentina), they believed that the abundance of metallic nodes was due to volcanic activity. However, this of course is not the case, with scientists believing that the Campo del Cielo meteor likely originated within the Asteroid Belt located between Mars and Jupiter and formed around the same time as the earth: some 4.5 billion years ago. The first report of the objects being written as meteorites was published in 1576; however the indigenous knowledge of the site far predates this.
The European Space Agency states that up to 100 tonnes of debris from the original meteorite have been recovered. Due to site surveillance, scientists predict that the Campo Del Cielo meteor would have weighed 600 tonnes before its atmospheric impact. However, upon entering the atmosphere, 300 tonnes of highly ferrous debris were flung into the Argentine no man’s land, making it one of the largest meteorite showers recorded.
