What do meteorite scientists wear in the lab?
Gloves, lab coats and safety glasses, and for the most precious samples, full clean-room suits with hoods and masks to stop contamination.
Meteorite scientists dress carefully, both to protect themselves and to protect the meteorites.
Everyday lab clothes. In most laboratories, scientists wear a lab coat to keep dust off their clothes, gloves to stop skin oils and germs getting onto samples, and safety glasses to protect their eyes when cutting or using chemicals.
Clean rooms. For the most precious samples, such as rocks brought back from the Moon or asteroids, scientists work in clean rooms. These rooms have filtered air with almost no dust. People entering them put on special suits that cover their whole body, sometimes called bunny suits, with hoods, masks, overshoes and two layers of gloves. They walk through air showers that blow away dust before going in.
Glove boxes. Some samples are never touched by hands at all. They are kept inside sealed cabinets filled with nitrogen gas. Scientists put their hands into thick rubber gloves built into the cabinet walls to move the samples. The samples from asteroids Ryugu and Bennu are handled like this.
Why so careful? Earth is full of things that could contaminate a meteorite: dust, water, air, bacteria and even the oils on our skin. Scientists want to study what came from space, not what came from them!
If you visit a meteorite lab, you might have to dress up too.