Cranbourne meteorite

The Cranbourne meteorite is a low previous near Cranbourne (City of Casey, a suburb of Melbourne ) in the Australian state of Victoria meteorite.

The two largest fragments with a weight of 1500 kg and 3500 were calculated at the time of their discovery to the world's largest. With a total weight of about 8700 kg, it is according to the Mundrabilla meteorite is the second largest meteorite find in Australia.

History

The timing of the fall of the Cranbourne meteorite is not known but it is estimated that he has fallen by the year 1800.

The first two fragments were discovered about 1853. 1854 at an exhibition in Melbourne one - as it was discovered later - from meteorite iron ( the Cranbourne # 1) produced horseshoe shown. 1860, it was discovered that it is in the pieces found so far a meteorite, which made them the subject of lively scientific interest.

When all the pieces found are iron meteorites belonging to the class of Oktaedrite. They have the same composition and their sites lie on a line extending from northeast to southwest and about 22 kilometer route. This suggests that a meteorite after entry into the Earth's atmosphere is broken into several parts and has descended.

The meteorite pieces Cranbourne Cranbourne # 1 and # 2 went in 1862 in the possession of the Natural History Museum in London on. The loss of these important objects for Australia sparked outrage so that the Natural History Museum the Cranbourne # 2 of the National Museum of Victoria gave.

Over the years, more fragments were found - to date there are a total of 13 meteorites parts. All fragments were randomly found during the construction of railways, roads or working in the fields - a systematic search has not been done.

List of the 13 fragments of the Cranbourne meteorite

Smaller, separate pieces of the meteorite were distributed to other museums.

Others

Replicas of the Cranbourne meteorite are on display in a park in Cranbourne.