Nogata (meteorite)

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The Nogata meteorite is considered to be the earliest observed meteorite fall in the world, of which material is still available today.

history

According to the records, the meteorite fell near the present-day city of Nogata on the island of Kyushu in Japan . It is said to have turned night into day and fell through the roof of the 7th century Shinto temple Suga-Jinja after a terrible explosion . Terrified villagers found a strange black stone in a hole on the temple floor. As a sacred object, it was finally kept in a wooden box by the responsible priest and provided with the fall date April 7, Jōgan 3 , which corresponds to May 19, 861 according to the Julian calendar .

The event and the meteorite fell into oblivion over the centuries and the meteorite was only "rediscovered" by Japanese scientists in 1979 through a tip from the amateur astronomer T. Magome, although the then head of the mining school Chikuho K. Yamada saw the stone as early as 1922 and recognized its meteoritic nature.

In addition to the composition, the earthly age of the meteorite could be confirmed by radiocarbon dating of the wooden box within certain error tolerances.

classification

After Japanese scientists received permission from Shinto priest M. Iwakuma in 1979, the meteorite could be examined more closely. It weighs 472 g, is rounded on all sides and surrounded by a glassy, ​​brown-black crust. Nogata is classified as L6 chondrite and contains mainly the mixed crystals olivine and hypersthene as well as various orthopyroxenes , namely the olivine terminal forsterite and the hypersthene terminal enstatite . In addition, the minerals albite , chlorapatite (see also apatite group ), chromite , troilite as well as native iron and copper could be detected.

See also

literature

  • Ludolf Schultz, Jochen Schlueter: Meteorites . Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2012, ISBN 978-3-86312-012-2 , p. 11 .
  • Masako Shima, H. Yabuki, Sadao Murayama, Akihiko Okada: Petrography, mineralogy and chemical composition on the chondrite Nogata, Nogata-shi, Fukuoka-ken, Japan, oldest observed fall in the world . In: 43rd Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society . tape 412 , 1980, pp. 1 , bibcode : 1980LPICo.412 .... 1S .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Rolf W. Bühler: Meteorite: Primordial matter from interplanetary space . Springer, Basel et al. 2013, ISBN 978-3-0348-6668-2 , pp. 14–15 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-0348-6667-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ^ Meteoritical Bulletin Database of the Meteoritical Society - Nogata
  3. ↑ Mindat - type locality Nogata meteorite, Nogata, Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu Region, Japan