Dronino (meteorite)
The Dronino meteorite is a nickel - iron meteorite that was found in April 2000 in the Ryazan Oblast south of Moscow .
The story of its discovery and identification as a meteorite is rather curious: on the way home from mushroom hunting, Oleg Nikolajewitsch Guskow from Moscow came across a rusty piece of iron sticking out of the ground at the edge of the forest. He tried to dig up the metal with his pocket knife, but it failed. Suspecting that it might be a meteorite, he returned with a shovel and wheelbarrow, dug up the find, and brought it home. He left the meteorite in his garden for two years. The meteorite disintegrated into three parts during this time. Guskow cut up one of the pieces with a saw, which confirmed his suspicion that it must be an extraterrestrial body. Now he went looking for experts and finally one of the pieces ended up in a Moscow laboratory.
This showed that it was a meteorite with a high nickel content. Due to its nature, the meteorite must have burst when it entered the earth's atmosphere , so that further fragments had to be present.
An expedition finally found more than 250 fragments with a total weight of 0.5 tons. The original mass of the meteorite is estimated to be around 1.5 tons. The fall of the meteorite must have been a spectacular event. However, since there are no records about this, it is assumed that the impact took place before the year 1200 AD. Only after this time did settlements emerge in the area of the site.
The Dronino meteorite is native to the asteroid belt and is classified as ataxite , a rare group of iron meteorites with a high nickel content.
Chemical composition: approx. 83% iron ; 17% nickel ; Trace elements