Have you ever went camping and looked up the night sky with all its
stars and all of a sudden you see a bright strip shoot across and
vanishing? Most meteorites never make it to impact, they travel so fast
that they burn up in the atmosphere. Scientists recon that the Hoba
Meteorite did infact reach or rather slowed down all the way to terminal
velocity on impact and is why there is no crater. It remains a
curiouslity that its shape is so vastly different to other meteorites
found thus far.
The owner of the farm at the time in 1920, Mr. Jacobus Hermanus Brits, encountered the object while ploughing one of his fields with an ox. During this task, he heard a loud metallic scratching sound and the plough came to an abrupt halt. The obstruction was excavated, identified as a meteorite and described by Mr. Brits, whose report was published in 1920 and can be viewed at the Grootfontein Museum in Namibia.
It roughly weighs 60 tons . he meteorite is composed of about 84% iron and 16% nickel, with traces of cobalt. It is the most massive naturally occurring piece of iron known on Earth's surface. The Name is dirived from the farms name, "Hoba West"
Want to see the outer eartly Hoba Meteorite?
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Photo by: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PIxjQhULvrY/maxresdefault.jpg
