Abstract

Chilean Astrobiology has an old origin, however it is only in recent times that it has arised and became an important subject among the national scientific scenary, with many lectures given in different universities, and congress and/or workshops in the subject every 2 years. Most of the astrobiology studies have been carried out in the Atacama Desert, from extremophiles and exoplanets and their atmospheres, until its Mars-like- surfaces or the great abundance of meteorites. The systematic search we have been carrying out over the last 10 years has increased the number of official chilean meteorites to 850 until mid 2016. This accumulation of meteorites in certain desert surfaces has only been possible due to the hyperaridity regime sostained during at least 1,5 My. We will present the chilean collection, at present formed by 89% of ordinary chondrites, 7% irons, 2% of carbonaceous chondrites, 1% achondrites and 1% of stony-irons. The 2% of carbonaceous chondrites corresponds to 15 meteorites from which 46% are type CO, 20% are CR, 20% are ungrouped, 7% are CK and 7% are CB, most of them availables for the scientific community for studies. We will present also the recent created groug of Meteoritcs and Planetary Sciences at the Sociedad Geológica de Chile, that has as main goal to make grow all these disciplines in Chile, and help to consolidate the Astrobiology in the country also.