Meteorite fall


A meteorite fall, also called an observed fall, is a meteorite collected after its fall from outer space, that was observed by people or automated devices. Any other meteorite is called a "find". , the Meteoritical Bulletin Database listed 1,270 observed falls of approved meteorites, most of which have specimens in modern collections.

Significance

Observed meteorite falls are of societal and scientific importance for several reasons:
  • In the most energetic of events, falls are observed by many human observers, and can co-occur with dramatic consequences as seen during the Chelyabinsk meteor event, in which 1,491 people were injured seriously enough to seek medical treatment.
  • Material from observed falls has not been subjected to terrestrial weathering, making the find an ideal candidate for scientific study into the dynamics of dust and small-body formation and understanding the history of solar system formation.
  • Historically, observed falls were the most compelling evidence supporting the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites.
  • A robust subculture of meteorite hunters has developed along with an associated market for meteorite minerals.
  • Observed fall discoveries are currently the best data source to understand the types of meteorites which fall to Earth. For example, iron meteorites take much longer to weather and are easier to identify as unusual objects, as compared to other types. This may explain the increased proportion of iron meteorites among finds, over that among observed falls. There is also detailed statistics on falls such as based on meteorite classification.

    Largest falls

While most confirmed falls involve masses between less than one kg to several kg, some reach 100 kg or more. A few have fragments that total even more than one metric ton. The six largest falls are listed below and five occurred during the 20th century. Presumably, events of such magnitude may happen a few times per century and have typically gone unreported.
For comparison, the largest finds are the 60-ton Hoba meteorite, a 30.8-ton fragment and a 28.8-ton fragment of the Campo del Cielo, and a 30.9-ton fragment of the Cape York meteorite.
Meteorite nameTotal mass in
tonnes 		Fall observation
date		CountryState, province,
or region		ClassificationRef
Sikhote-Alin23RussiaPrimoryeIIAB iron
Jilin4ChinaJilinH5
Allende2MexicoChihuahuaCV3
Kunya-Urgench1.1TurkmenistanTashauzH5
Norton County1.1United StatesKansasAubrite
Chelyabinsk1RussiaChelyabinskLL5

Observation methods

Automated devices

In April 1959 the metorite Příbram was the first meteorite whose trajectory was tracked by multiple cameras recording the associated fireball. The Ondřejov Observatory in the Czech Republic captured photos of the fireball using eleven widely spaced cameras. With the help of this stereo recording, Přibram's trajectory could be reconstructed quite accurately, aiding its recovery and also - for the very first time - enabling scientists to trace its pre-impact orbit back to the asteroid belt.
Eleven years later, the fireball from the Lost City meteorite, was recorded with four cameras from the Prairie Meteorite Network operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, when it fell in Cherokee County Oklahoma, in January 1970. This was the first time a meteorite was recovered solely on the basis of photographic measurements. In 1977 the meteorite of Innisfree was discovered using photographs taken by the Meteorite Observation and Recovery Program of the National Research Council of Canada. The fall of Benešov was recorded in 1991, however the meteorite was only recovered in 2011 after the strewnfield was recalculated and metal detectors were used to search for small fragments.
The meteorite of Ischgl was found by an Austria forest ranger in 1976 and was kept at home by the finder without undergoing any scientific examination until 2008, when it was classified as a meteorite. Upon review of the archived fireball events photographed by the German fireball camera network, it could be determined, in a study published in 2024, that in November 1970 a fireball event observed by 10 different stations was connected to the fall of the later discovered meteorite.
Over the last decades fireball networks consisting of dedicated arrays of cameras were put in operation in several countries. As more automated cameras monitor the night sky and track fireballs, the chances of locating meteorites have increased. Statistics for observed falls by decade are listed in the table in this section. It took more than 30 years for the falls of the first 4 meteorites to be recorded by automated devices, the same amount of falls with documented trajectories as in the single year of 2015.
For the period since 2020 the number of meteorite falls reported globally each year has increased to on avererage more than 10 per year, up from about 6 a year in the 1990s. As of December 2025 there are 75 instrumentally observed recovered meteorites, for which also a pre-impact orbit could be determined.
Today, there are several networks of whole sky cameras recording space rock from different directions, thus making it easier to calculate the impact sites of meteorites and increasing the probability of actually finding material after a meteor has been observed.
Among the camera networks are:
Accidental random fireball records documented by video have increased over the past decades and social media now distributes videos so broadly that a much larger share of falls is being captured and documented. The first ever meteor to be filmed by a camera was the Great Daylight Fireball which blazed over the Rocky Mountains in 1972 - however this earth grazer supposedly left earth's atmosphere again, without meteorites impacting the ground.
The first meteorite fall to be documented by video cameras by coincidence was Peekskill meteorite in 1992. The bright fireball visible for more than 40 seconds was recorded by 15 chance eyewitnesses' videocameras from different locations. Peekskill back then was only the fourth meteorite whose prior orbit could be calculated based on the reconstructed trajectory of the fall. The orbits for the previous falls of Přibram, Lost City meteorite and Innisfree had been determined based on photographs. Peekskill, however, was the first fall documented by motion-picture footage.
Video cameras have since become widespread with the rise of surveillance or traffic cameras, ski-resort webcams, dashboard and doorbell cameras and smart phones, which have all been used to capture fireballs in connection with recovered meteorites. Among the most spectacular falls observed by numerous cameras is the Chelyabinsk meteor from February 2013.
The fall of the meteorite in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, in February 2020 was captured by dashcams, security cameras and even a camera mounted on a cyclist's helmet. The footage was used by astronomers to triangulate the meteorite's trajectory.
The fall of the Charlottetown meteorite in 2024 was the first case, where the actual moment of the impact on the ground was recorded with video including audio. The sound of the meteorite shattering upon impact has been described as similar to the sound of breaking ice.

Radar detection

has become a useful aid for locating meteorites after observed fireballs because it can detect descending fragments of the meteorite during the dark flight-phase – that is, the phase of a meteorite's descent when its speed has been slowed by atmospheric drag to the point that it no longer emits visible light and the fragments reach terminal velocity.
Radar-derived echoes from falling stones can help determine whether an observed fireball event has produced meteorites large enough to be recovered on the ground. Radar data in combination with weather data can be ued to reconstruct a fall's final trajectory in order to calculate a possible strewn field. This allows people searching for meteorites to focus their search efforts more efficiently than by relying only on traditional methods such as eyewitness accounts, recordings from security cameras and other video sources. Targeted searches have improved the chances to quickly collect minimally weathered specimens that are scientifically valuable for studying the composition and history of their parent bodies.
The fall of the Ash Creek meteorite in February 2009 was the first time when data from weather radar was used to locate meteorites on the ground. Among the radar-enabled recoveries of meteorites is also the fall of the Sutter's Mill meteorite. Archived radar data has also been used retrospectively to identify radar signals of falling fragments for earlier meteorite falls such as Worden in 1997 or Indian Butte in 1998.
Most of the radar detections of meteorite falls have occurred in the United States, where the data produced by the NEXRAD system is publicly available online almost in real time and archived since the introduction of the system in the 1990s. As of 2025 there are 32 meteorite falls where evidence of falling debris was found in NEXRAD data. The ARES Division of NASA also publishes possible landing zones of meteorite fragments identified by radar stations across the United States. Among them are also falls outside the United States, such as the Grimsby meteorite, a fall from 2009 in Canada and the Viñales meteorite, a fall from 2019 in Cuba, both of which were within the detection radius of NEXRAD stations.