In this artist illustration, the sun (the yellow star at center) moves through a clump of interstellar gas that may still be raining down radioactive iron from a long-ago supernova explosion. (Credit: NASA/Goddard/Adler/U. Chicago/Wesleyan)

Antarctica is one of the most pristine places on the planet. Thanks to its generally inhospitable nature, as well as its natural isolation, it’s a good place for astronomers to search for meteorites and other materials that fall from the sky. They tend to