Bad Rodach meteorite fall (1775)
| Bad Rodach meteorite fall (1775) | |
|---|---|
| place | Bad Rodach |
| Fall time | September 19, 1775, around 10 a.m. |
| Coordinates | 50 ° 21 ′ 0 ″ N , 10 ° 48 ′ 0 ″ E |
| origin | Asteroid Hebe? |
| Meteorite name | Rodach |
| authenticity | for sure |
The Bad Rodach meteorite fall in 1775 is the name given to an impact event in Germany near Coburg (Upper Franconia).
history
From Rodacher meteorite, which fell on September 19, 1775, several are in the Coburg Weekly display eyewitness reports in the period from 15 December 1775 to 17 May included the 1776th At that time, many observers noticed a strong, repeated bang, followed by a rattle, in a completely clear sky.
An eyewitness was collecting potatoes at around 10 a.m. when, according to the Coburg Weekly Advertisement report, she suddenly discovered a "lump of fire the size of your basket, accompanied by pops and patters in the air". Beside her, a blue lump the size of a goose egg pounded into the soil. Dust and steam rose up to the height of a man.
The search for the stone was initially unsuccessful. Two days later, a stone weighing 6.5 pounds (3.6 kg) was discovered in the middle of a cauldron in the ground (until 1811, 1 pound weighed about 561 g in Bavaria). The stone had hit a potato plant directly, hurled the individual potatoes outwards, smashed some, charred others black and brown.
According to another report, the stone itself was covered with a thin dark brown bark. It resembled a tetrahedron , with uneven faces; the largest side surface had a round depression with radial stripes.
Disappearance and alleged recovery of the meteorite
The meteorite was brought to the ducal natural history cabinet, from where it disappeared without a trace. Chladni wrote:
“… Someone must either have stolen it or thrown it away out of ignorance. Many a person who would otherwise hardly steal something has no hesitation in secretly taking something he may need from a collection in kind, as I know two examples of men who have achieved celebrity. One has of course other expressions for this than: steal; however, it is better if one has only one specific expression for every thing, especially for wrongdoing, ... "
When cleaning up the Coburg Art Collection, 230 years after the meteorite fall, a stone was found in an old cupboard on which the description of the missing meteorite fit. The remainder of an old, illegible label could be seen. During its analysis, high levels of copper were found. However, since copper does not occur in these quantities in space , it was ruled out that the stone in question was the meteorite we were looking for. This means that the Bad Rodach meteorite remains lost.
See also
literature
- Bavarian State Office for the Environment : Out of this world. Bavaria's meteorite. Self-published, Augsburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-936385-92-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ AV Réyti, G. Aumann: Meteorite - messengers from space. Coburg Natural History Museum, Coburg 1996.
- ↑ a b Bavarian State Office for the Environment: Not of this world. Bavaria's meteorite. 2012, pp. 32–33.
- ↑ a b E. FF Chladni: About the fire meteors and the masses that fell with them. Heubner, Vienna 1819.