Howardites
Meteorites of Britain and Ireland · Scotland

The Perth meteorite

A stone that fell on Perth's riverside park in a thunderstorm, of which only a few grams were saved.

Key facts

Fell
17 May 1830
Where
the North Inch, Perth
Type
LL5 ordinary chondrite
Mass
about 2 g survives
Where it is kept
A few grams survive in museum collections
Nation today
Scotland

On 17 May 1830, during a thunderstorm, a stone fell on the North Inch, the large public park beside the River Tay in Perth. The only contemporary record is a handwritten note that came with the specimens, written by a Glasgow chemist who owned them. The stone was said to be about 18 centimetres across, but only about 2 grams of fragments were kept.

Those few grams were enough to classify it. In the 1860s the mineralogist Nevil Story-Maskelyne examined a thin slice under the microscope, and today Perth is listed as an LL5 ordinary chondrite. LL means low iron and low metal, the group with the least metal of the three ordinary chondrite groups.

Perth shows how a meteorite can be almost entirely lost and still count. As long as some genuine material survives with a reliable record of where and when it fell, the meteorite keeps its place in the catalogue.

Did you know?

Did you know?

Only about 2 grams of Perth survive, making it the smallest surviving British meteorite.

Did you know?

Thunderstorms and meteorite falls are unrelated: the storm on that day was a coincidence.

Find out more

Nearest other British and Irish meteorites