Meteorite Collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Russia's national collection, with the Pallas iron and the largest single piece of Sikhote-Alin.

Key facts

Where

Moscow, Russia

Kind

Research collection

Visiting

Mainly for researchers; some material lent to museums

The meteorite collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences, now kept at the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry in Moscow, is one of the largest in the world and the main national collection of Russia. It grew from the collections of the Academy in St Petersburg in the 18th century.

Its most historic object is the main mass of the Krasnojarsk pallasite, the Pallas iron, found in Siberia in 1749 and described by the naturalist Peter Simon Pallas. In 1794 Ernst Chladni used it as key evidence that meteorites come from space, and pallasites are named after Pallas. The collection also holds the largest piece of the Sikhote-Alin iron, which fell as a huge shower in the Russian Far East on 12 February 1947; the biggest mass weighs about 1.7 tonnes.

Scientists of the Academy also gathered and studied many pieces of the Chelyabinsk meteorite after the airburst of 2013.

Highlights

• Krasnojarsk the Pallas iron Pallasite, PMG-an
• Sikhote-Alin largest piece, about 1.7 tonnes Iron, IIAB
• Chelyabinsk fragments of the 2013 fall LL5

Related pages

Opening times, what is on display and access to research collections change over time, so check with the institution before you visit.