It’s an early Christmas gift for the Natural Sciences Museum of Angers: a 105 kg fragment of the largest meteorite recorded in France. A six-ton celestial rock which broke up before hitting the Earth 55,000 years ago, near Saint-Aubin, in Aube. A gift which will perhaps overshadow the Angers meteorite, well known to residents since its discovery in 1822.
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The fragment which was donated to the Angers Museum of Natural Sciences comes from the discovery made by farmers from Saint-Aubin (Aube) in the 1960s. While plowing their plot, they found several masses of iron which they then stored at the edge of the field.
It was after seeing a report on Martian meteorites that one of these farmers remembered this discovery decades earlier.
“After analysis, we realized that it was indeed a meteorite, but not a Martian meteorite, explains Pierre Antonin, meteorite hunter. It’s still extraterrestrial matter. These meteorites are 100% metallic.”
It was with a team that he put together that Pierre Antonin discovered the biggest part of this fall in 2018. He weighed 477 kg!
READ ALSO: Aube: the largest meteorite in France discovered in Saint-Aubin
“We have a special history with meteorites” explains Benoît Mellier, head of the Earth sciences collections at the Angers Museum, showing a meteorite that fell in 1822 in a garden in the Doutre district of Angers.
Meteorite that fell on Angers in 1822 and exhibited at the city’s Natural Sciences Museum.
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© France Télévisions
During the bicentenary of this discovery, the museum enriched its collection with temporary loans of various meteorites.
“Among these borrowed meteorites, there was a meteorite from Saint-Aubin” the second largest in Europe, says Benoit Mellier. We were put in contact with the discoverers of this meteorite who offered us the donation of a sample.”
The meteorite that fell in Aube is different from the Angers meteorite. The latter is rocky while that of Saint-Aubin, in addition to its weight (105 kg), is ferrous.
“It is a remarkable object that people will be able to see very closely, or even for the most daring, touch it”announces Benoît Mellier.
The asteroid which crashed into the Saint-Aubin area around 55,000 years ago, after traveling hundreds of millions of kilometers through space from an area between Mars and Jupiter, is one of the largest ever found in Europe.
“It broke up into several hundred fragments, of which approximately 6 to 8 tons were found today”specifies Benoît Mellier.
Note that meteorite falls are common, with several tonnes falling per year. Last summer, we even observed a fall in the Angers region.
“By crossing several cameras, we were able to determine a fall zone in which we surveyed for a full day, says the head of the Earth sciences collections. There were several dozen of us going back and forth in the fields and we couldn’t find her. It’s very difficult to track down, but it happens. The previous year, in Normandy, one was found.”
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