Pułtusk, 1868: a shower of stones
Tens of thousands of meteorites fell on one January evening.
At about 7 pm on 30 January 1868, thousands of people saw a brilliant fireball over northern Poland. It broke apart near the town of Pułtusk, about 60 km north-east of Warsaw, and rained stones over a wide area, some falling onto the frozen Narew river.
Estimates of the number of stones run into the tens of thousands, many of them small pebble-sized pieces later called 'Pułtusk peas'. It is one of the largest meteorite showers ever recorded.
Pułtusk is an H5 ordinary chondrite. Because so many pieces were collected, it is found in museum collections around the world.
In the catalogue
- Pultusk H5, Poland, 1868 · 250 kg