Meteorite falls by year
Every year with a recorded meteorite fall: 259 years, from 861 to 2024, and 1,136 witnessed falls in all. Each year has its own page listing what fell, with a link to every meteorite.
A fall is a meteorite that someone saw or heard arrive and that was then picked up. Falls make up only a small share of the meteorites known, but they matter more than their numbers suggest: they are collected before Earth's weather changes them, and they show which kinds of meteorite really reach the ground, without the bias of which ones happen to survive and get noticed later.
The number of falls recorded each decade grows over the centuries. That is not because more rocks arrive: it reflects more people, better communication, and the growing understanding, after about 1800, that stones really do fall from the sky. Since the 2000s, camera networks that track fireballs have added falls that no one would otherwise have found. The busiest single year in this list is 1933, with 17 falls.
The most recent falls are still being added to the catalogue, so the years since 2014 list only the falls that already have a page here.
Years that changed the science
- 861: Nōgata, the oldest witnessed fall whose stone survives
- 1492: Ensisheim, the oldest European fall with surviving material
- 1751: The Hrašćina iron, later key evidence for Chladni
- 1768: Lucé, the stone the French Academy explained away
- 1794: The Siena shower, in the year of Chladni's book
- 1795: Wold Cottage, Britain's largest single fallen stone
- 1803: L'Aigle, the fall that convinced the French Academy
- 1807: Weston, the first recovered fall in the United States
- 1815: Chassigny, the first chassignite from Mars
- 1864: Orgueil, a rare CI chondrite and a famous hoax
- 1865: Shergotty, the first shergottite from Mars
- 1868: Pułtusk and its tens of thousands of stones
- 1911: Nakhla, the first nakhlite from Mars
- 1947: Sikhote-Alin, the largest iron fall ever witnessed
- 1954: Sylacauga, the stone that struck Ann Hodges
- 1959: Příbram, the first meteorite with a known orbit
- 1965: Barwell, Britain's largest fall by total mass
- 1969: Allende and Murchison, two of the most studied meteorites
- 1976: Jilin, the largest stony meteorite seen to fall
- 1992: Mbale and the filmed Peekskill fireball
- 2000: Tagish Lake, collected frozen and untouched by hand
- 2007: Carancas, a stony meteorite that made a crater
- 2008: Almahata Sitta, from the first asteroid seen before impact
- 2011: Tissint, a fresh fall from Mars
- 2012: Sutter's Mill, found with the help of weather radar
- 2013: The Chelyabinsk airburst
- 2021: Winchcombe, Britain's first recovered fall in 30 years
Falls per decade
| Decade | Falls | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 860s | 1 | |
| 920s | 1 | |
| 1390s | 1 | |
| 1490s | 3 | |
| 1510s | 1 | |
| 1580s | 1 | |
| 1620s | 3 | |
| 1630s | 3 | |
| 1640s | 1 | |
| 1650s | 1 | |
| 1660s | 2 | |
| 1670s | 1 | |
| 1680s | 1 | |
| 1700s | 1 | |
| 1710s | 1 | |
| 1720s | 1 | |
| 1740s | 2 | |
| 1750s | 4 | |
| 1760s | 4 | |
| 1770s | 4 | |
| 1780s | 2 | |
| 1790s | 9 | |
| 1800s | 17 | |
| 1810s | 24 | |
| 1820s | 25 | |
| 1830s | 21 | |
| 1840s | 31 | |
| 1850s | 36 | |
| 1860s | 56 | |
| 1870s | 51 | |
| 1880s | 40 | |
| 1890s | 51 | |
| 1900s | 56 | |
| 1910s | 66 | |
| 1920s | 70 | |
| 1930s | 91 | |
| 1940s | 58 | |
| 1950s | 60 | |
| 1960s | 62 | |
| 1970s | 60 | |
| 1980s | 56 | |
| 1990s | 56 | |
| 2000s | 59 | |
| 2010s | 33 | |
| 2020s | 9 |
Every year
9th century
10th century
14th century
15th century
16th century
17th century
18th century
1704 1715 1723 1740 1741 1750 1751 1753 1766 1768 1769 1773 1775 1779 1785 1787 1790 1791 1794 1795 1796 1798
19th century
1801 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899
20th century
1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
21st century
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2024
See also
For falls by calendar date, see on this day. For the stories of the best-known falls, see famous meteorites, and for the great airbursts and impacts, see impact events.