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Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies

Little Piney

Lucky 13!

Little Piney is an ordinary (L6) chondrite that fell in Missouri the afternoon of February 13, 1839.  The meteorite’s entry was heard by local witnesses as it exploded between 3 and 4 PM, with 3 subsequent smaller explosions as it broke into pieces.

The witnesses went in search of the stones they’d seen breaking up in the sky, and found them scattered about the snow-covered ground, near a tree that had been struck and damaged by the meteorites.  Over 490 g of the Little Piney meteorite have been recovered.

The Little Piney meteorite was described by E.C. Herrick that September, in Philosophical Magazine (The Fall of a Meteorite in Missouri, Feb. 13, 1839).