Hoba: the largest meteorite on Earth
A 60-tonne slab of iron that has never been moved.
In 1920 a farmer named Jacobus Hermanus Brits was ploughing a field near Grootfontein in Namibia when his plough hit something hard. He had found the largest meteorite known: a flat block of iron about 2.7 by 2.7 metres and nearly a metre thick, weighing about 60 tonnes.
Hoba is so heavy it has never been moved from where it landed, probably around 80,000 years ago. Scientists think its flat shape helped it skip like a stone across the atmosphere, slowing it down enough to land without making a crater.
It is an ataxite of chemical group IVB, about 84% iron and 16% nickel. Hoba was declared a national monument in 1955 and is now a visitor attraction.
In the catalogue
- Hoba Iron, IVB, Namibia, 1920 · 60 t