Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

The US national meteorite collection, one of the largest in the world, and the long-term home of America's Antarctic meteorites.

Key facts

Where

Washington, DC, United States

Kind

Museum

Visiting

Public galleries

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History holds the United States national meteorite collection, among the largest and most studied in the world. It is also the permanent home of the meteorites recovered by the US Antarctic search programme since the 1970s, which run to many thousands of stones, including lunar and Martian meteorites.

Its highlights include the Tucson Ring, a ring-shaped iron of about 620 kilograms that was used as an anvil by a blacksmith in Tucson before it was brought to Washington in the 1860s, and a very large share of the Allende carbonaceous chondrite, which fell in Mexico in 1969 and was collected by Smithsonian scientists. Allende's white inclusions are among the oldest solids in the Solar System.

The museum's meteorite scientists also run a classification programme and publish catalogues of the Antarctic meteorites for researchers worldwide.

Highlights

• Tucson the Tucson Ring iron Iron, ungrouped
• Allende large share of the 1969 fall CV3
• Antarctic meteorites the US collection

Related pages

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