Braunschweig meteorite


The Braunschweig meteorite is a meteorite that hit Melverode, a suburb in Braunschweig, Germany, at around 2:05 AM on April 23, 2013. It hit the concrete pavement in front of the home of Erhard Seemann, breaking into hundreds of fragments on impact, the largest of which is 214 grams. The meteorite created a small impact crater in the concrete, with a diameter of and a depth of.

Composition and classification

The meteorite has been classified as an L6 ordinary chondrite.

Impact

The meteorite fell at around 2:05 AM on April 23, 2013, with an estimated velocity of. It hit concrete pavement from Erhard Seemann's front door, breaking into hundreds of fragments upon impact. The largest fragment, with a mass of 214 grams, stuck in the concrete, forming an impact crater with a diameter of and a depth of. Fragments of concrete ejected from the impact were as wide as. Many other fragments of the meteorite were found within from the impact crater by several people. Traces of a secondary impact were found at a nearby brick wall in the form of indents wide. A total of of fragments were found.

Reports

A neighbor reported hearing a strong hum and "whoosh" followed by a loud crash at around 2:10 AM, who then found four fragments of the meteorite on his driveway. In Ahlum, from the impact site, Julian Mascow reported a bright flare approaching from the southeast for 1–2 seconds, with a luminosity "like dawn," before ending in a "short tracer just over his head." He heard a loud explosion about 90 seconds later followed by a rumbling noise. Mark Vornhusen's web camera documented the fireball from Vechta, located about from Braunschweig. The light meter of a weather station in Brandenburg, approximately from Braunschweig, recorded 5 seconds of brightening. The Technical University of Braunschweig informed expert Rainer Bartoschewitz of the reports, who inspected the site on April 27 and confirmed the meteorite.