Ozerki

A bright fireball over Russia in June 2018 that delivered fresh stones to villagers and scientists within days.

Key facts

Type

Ordinary chondrite (L6)

Fell or found

Fell (witnessed)

Year

2018 (21 June)

Country

Russia (Lipetsk region)

Mass

small stones, from a meteoroid a few metres across

Official name

Ozerki (meteorite)

In the early hours of 21 June 2018, around the time of the summer solstice, a bright fireball lit up the sky over the Lipetsk region of western Russia, south of Moscow. People in the region saw the flash and heard booms as the meteoroid broke apart. Within days, local residents and scientists were finding small black stones near the village of Ozerki. The meteorite was named after the village.

Searching for stones

As news of the fireball spread, meteorite researchers, including a team from the Ural Federal University in Yekaterinburg, travelled to the area. Working with local people, they searched fields and roads for fresh stones. Many pieces were found, most of them small. Because they were collected quickly, the stones were very fresh, with black fusion crusts and grey interiors.

The fireball was also detected by sensors that monitor bright events in the atmosphere. Their data suggested that the meteoroid was only a few metres across and released energy equivalent to a few thousand tonnes of TNT when it broke apart high in the atmosphere. That is far smaller than the Chelyabinsk event of 2013, but still large enough to produce a spectacular fireball and a shower of stones.

What it is

Ozerki is an L6 ordinary chondrite. Ordinary chondrites are the most common meteorites seen to fall. They are made mainly of the minerals olivine and pyroxene, together with grains of iron-nickel metal and iron sulphide. 'L' stands for low iron, meaning that L chondrites contain less metal than the H group. The number 6 tells us that the rock was strongly heated inside its parent asteroid, blurring and recrystallising its chondrules, the tiny rounded grains typical of chondrites.

Many L chondrites show signs of a major collision in the asteroid belt about 470 million years ago, which shattered their parent body and sent many fragments towards Earth. Scientists study meteorites like Ozerki to understand how such collisions shaped the populations of meteorites that reach us today.

Fresh falls and modern technology

Ozerki shows how modern technology and public reports work together. Fireballs today are often recorded by dashboard cameras, security cameras, smartphones and specialised sensors. By combining these records, scientists can estimate a meteoroid's path and work out where fragments might have landed. The faster searchers reach a fall site, the fresher the stones they find, and the more valuable they are to science. Fresh stones allow scientists to measure short-lived radioactive atoms created by cosmic rays in space. These decay away within weeks to years after a meteorite lands, so they can only be detected if it is analysed soon after the fall.

Russia has seen several notable recent falls, from Chelyabinsk in 2013 to Ozerki in 2018. Each one adds to our understanding of how often meteoroids of different sizes hit Earth and how they break up in the atmosphere.

Why it matters

Ozerki is a good example of a modern meteorite fall: seen by many people, recorded by instruments, and recovered quickly through cooperation between scientists and local communities. Its fresh stones provide clean samples of a common type of meteorite, ideal for studies of cosmic-ray exposure, which reveals how long a meteoroid travelled in space, and for comparison with other L chondrites.

It also shows how ordinary people can contribute. Villagers who noticed unusual stones and reported them helped scientists recover the meteorite. If you ever see a bright fireball, note the time and direction, and report it to a fireball network or astronomy society. If you find a suspected meteorite, avoid handling it with bare hands, record where you found it, ask permission on private land, and contact a museum or university.

Did you know?

See more

Ozerki (meteorite) in the catalogue