Click on the links below to read more about the meteorites in the Carleton B. Moore collection and view meteorite photos!
Chajari
Chajari is an ordinary (L5) chondrite that fell the afternoon of November 29, 1933, in Argentina. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 21): “The fall of the meteorite was accompanied by intense sounds resembling thunder followed by the sound of a blow on the ground. The stone was dug up from a depth of over […]
Spade
Spade is an ordinary (H6) chondrite found in Lamb County, Texas, in October of 2000. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 87), “a single mass of 8.86 kg was found in a grass field by Mr. J. Talbert while farming.” Photo © ASU/BCMS. […]
Benld
Benld is an ordinary chondrite (H6) that fell the morning of September 29th, 1938, in Macoupin County, Illinois. The Benld meteorite was only the second meteorite recovered in Illinois (there are now 10 recognized meteorites from the state), and its fall was quite spectacular. The meteorite was described by B.H. Wilson in Popular Astronomy (1938) […]
Crescent
Crescent is a CM2 carbonaceous chondrite that fell in Oklahoma, the evening of August 17th, 1936. The associated fireball was visible in Texas and Kansas, as well as Oklahoma, and the meteorite’s recovery was immediately organized. While the first stone, a 73-gram chondrite in fresh condition, was collected three days after the fall (by a […]
Thika
Thika is an ordinary (L6) chondrite that fell in central Kenya the morning of July 16, 2011. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 100): A bright fireball in multiple pieces was observed from southern Kenya traveling to the northwest around 10 am on the July 16, 2011. Residents around Kiambu County in the Thika District […]
Nakhla
Nakhla is a martian achondrite that fell June 28th, 1911, in Al Buhayrah, Egypt. At the time of the fall, a newspaper article was published claiming the meteorite had hit a dog on entry. This was never proven, but did inspire a Peanuts cartoon strip, in which Linus and Charlie Brown discuss the meteorite striking […]
Samelia
Samelia is a IIIAB iron meteorite that fell the evening of May 20, 1921, in India. In a 1924 publication, Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor (then acting director of the Geological Survey of India) described witness accounts of the meteorite’s fall: “The fireball moved from south to north and left a white trail in the sky. […]
L’Aigle
April’s Meteorite of the Month is L’Aigle, an ordinary (L6) chondrite that fell in Orme, France on April 26, 1803. The L’Aigle meteorite fall, which produced a shower of over 3,000 stones, proved to European scientists that rocks fall from the sky. Although people had seen meteorites fall before 1803, their stories had typically been […]
Norton County
Norton County fell February 18th of 1948, on the Kansas/Nebraska border. Norton County is a rare type of meteorite called an aubrite, which is an enstatite achondrite. Aubrites are dominated by enstatite – a pyroxene mineral containing Mg, Si, and O. This mineral is white in Norton County, as opposed to the more normal green […]
Coolidge
Coolidge is a carbonaceous (C4-ungrouped) chondrite found in Kansas in 1937. According to Meteoritical Society classification, type-4 carbonaceous chondrites mostly have Mg/Si ratios near solar value, oxygen isotope compositions that plot below the terrestrial fractionation line, and abundant metamorphosed chondrules. At the Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies, collection curator and research professor Laurence Garvie deciphers […]
