The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin has confirmed the discovery of rare meteorites in Brandenburg. The museum announced that initial results from examinations of more than 20 samples from the scattered field of an asteroid that burned up on January 21st showed that it was a rare so-called aubrite. The scientific director of the museum’s meteorite collection, Ansgar Greshake, said: “So far there is only material from eleven observed Aubrite cases in collections worldwide.” In the future, visitors will be able to see some fragments in the exhibition.
The tiny asteroid 2024 BX1 burned up near Berlin on the night of January 21st. The fireball could be seen from far away in the sky. The US space agency Nasa had announced it for Sunday morning near Nennhausen in Havelland, which is west of Berlin. Afterwards, numerous scientists and collectors came to the area in Havelland west of Berlin. Meteorites are the pieces that arrive on Earth from a celestial body.
A team of researchers and students from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the German Aerospace Center, the Free University of Berlin, the Technical University of Berlin and the SETI Institute (USA) have collected more than 20 samples for the research collection Collected from the museum. The results were submitted to the International Nomenclature Commission of the Meteoritical Society for review and confirmation on February 2nd, the museum said. It is only the eighth case worldwide in which an asteroid’s collision with the Earth was predicted shortly before it occurred.
Aubrites – named after an 1836 case near Aubres in France – are more like gray granite and are difficult to see in the field, said research associate Christopher Hamann of the Museum für Naturkunde. The Aubrite, on which this material was first described, is also in the research collection of the Berlin Museum.
