Stannern meteorite fell on May 22, 1808 into the

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

n village

Stonařov Stonařov (); ) is a market town in Jihlava District in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,100 inhabitants. Administrative division Stonařov consists of two municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 c ...

(in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

''Stannern''), in today's

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Classification

The meteorites were classified into the

HED meteorite HED meteorites are a clan (subgroup) of achondrite meteorites. HED stands for " howardite– eucrite– diogenite". These achondrites came from a differentiated parent body and experienced extensive igneous processing not much different from the ...

clan (possibly from asteroid

4 Vesta Vesta (minor-planet designation: 4 Vesta) is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of . It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta (mytho ...

) and

eucrite Eucrites are achondritic stony meteorites, many of which originate from the surface of the asteroid 4 Vesta and are part of the HED meteorite clan. They are the most common achondrite group with over 100 meteorites found. Eucrites consist of b ...

sub-group.

The fall

The fall was witnessed by many and dozens of fragments were soon collected by naturalist Karl Schreibers. The

meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...

shower occurred on Sunday 22 May 1808, shortly before 06:00. The meteorites fell into an elliptic area ( strewnfield) oriented north–south with height about and width , into Stonařov and neighbouring villages (among them Otín, Cerekvička-Rosice,

Dlouhá Brtnice Dlouhá Brtnice (; ) is a municipality and village in Jihlava District in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 400 inhabitants. Dlouhá Brtnice lies approximately south of Jihlava and south-east of Prague Prague ( ; ) ...

, Hladov, Stará Říše). The event was witnessed by people on their way into the church. According to the local chronicle the fall took about 8 minutes and the number of meteorites was estimated to 200–300. No person was injured and no property was damaged. Shortly after the fall Dr. Karl Schreibers, director of natural science collections in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, arrived to the place, organized search for the fragments and thoroughly documented the event.

Sample distribution

Most of the 66 found fragments weight between with the largest one having over . Total recovered weight was about . The stones found their way into museums all over the world. The largest fragment is stored in the Museum of Natural History in Vienna.

Literature

* Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts, volume XXV, 1810, published by William Nicholson: ''Analysis of the aerolite that fell on Stannern, Moravia'', article by

Louis Nicolas Vauquelin Louis Nicolas Vauquelin FRS(For) HFRSE (; 16 May 1763 – 14 November 1829) was a French pharmacist and chemist. He was the discoverer of chromium and beryllium. Early life Vauquelin was born at Saint-André-d'Hébertot in Normandy, France, th ...

, p. 54-59
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* For the 200th anniversary of the even
Museum
of

Vysočina Region The Vysočina Region (; ) is an administrative unit () of the Czech Republic. Its capital is Jihlava. The region is located in the central part of the country. It is one of just three in the country (the others being Prague and the Central Boh ...

Jihlava Jihlava (; ) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 55,000 inhabitants. Jihlava is the capital of the Vysočina Region, situated on the Jihlava (river), Jihlava River on the historical border between Moravia and Bohemia. Historically, Jihla ...

published proceedings about the Stonařov meteorite. The document contains, among others, contemporary records and complete list of places keeping the fragments.

References

External links

Composition of the meteorite

Short information about the event
(in Czech, website of

Czech Academy of Sciences The Czech Academy of Sciences (abbr. CAS, , abbr. AV ČR) was established in 1992 by the Czech National Council as the Czech successor of the former Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and its tradition goes back to the Royal Bohemian Society of Sc ...