Natural History Museum Vienna
The oldest meteorite collection in the world and its largest display: about 1,100 meteorites on show in one hall.
Key facts
- Where
- Vienna, Austria
- Kind
- Museum
- Visiting
- Public galleries
Vienna's meteorite collection is usually described as the oldest in the world. Its founding object is Hraschina, an iron meteorite seen to fall near Zagreb in what is now Croatia on 26 May 1751. Witness statements were gathered at the time and the iron was sent to the imperial collection in Vienna, where it became one of the first meteorites to be studied scientifically.
Today the collection is one of the largest anywhere, and Hall 5 of the museum is the biggest meteorite exhibition in the world. About 1,100 specimens from some 650 different meteorites are on show, roughly half falls and half finds, arranged so that visitors can walk through the classification of meteorites from carbonaceous chondrites to irons.
The centrepiece is Knyahinya, a stone of about 300 kilograms from a fall in 1866 in what is now Ukraine, for many years the largest stony meteorite known. Nearby are historic stones such as Stannern, Tabor and Tieschitz, and large irons including Cabin Creek, a strikingly shaped oriented iron from Arkansas. The hall also has a working meteor radar, an 18th-century planetary machine made for the Empress Maria Theresa, and paintings of the old imperial collection.
Highlights
- Hraschina founding object, fell 1751 Iron, IID
- Knyahinya stone of about 300 kg L/LL5
- Stannern eucrite fall of 1808 Eucrite-mmict
- Cabin Creek oriented iron Iron, IIIAB
Related pages
Opening times, what is on display and access to research collections change over time, so check with the institution before you visit.