DAccording to the expert, the meteorites found in Brandenburg actually come from a mini-asteroid that recently fell there. “At first we were cautious,” Jörn Helbert of the German Aviation Center (DLR) told RBB Inforadio on Saturday. However, it is now clear that the findings are actually meteorite fragments.
The pieces are also so interesting because we know exactly how and when they came from the sky, said Helbert, who heads DLR's Planetary Laboratories division. Furthermore, the meteorite fragments are still very fresh and have not been exposed to the weather for many years or even centuries. “They are now being investigated in detail.”
The search for further parts of the celestial body will continue for the time being. “We are now out on the weekend with a relatively large group continuing to search the exact area to find more pieces.”
On Sunday evening, the tiny asteroid 2024 BX1 burned up near Berlin. A ball of fire could be seen in the sky. The US space agency NASA announced this by Sunday morning in Havelland, near Nennhausen, west of Berlin. Meteorites are pieces that arrive on Earth from an asteroid.
Collectors from Poland want to sell their find
According to the Natural History Museum, the parts were found by a four-member search team in Poland. “Spiegel” first reported it. The location is in Havelland, near Ribbeck, in the so-called “scattering field”, calculated by scientists after the asteroid burned up. “We assume it was luck and it's one of the larger pieces lying in the sprawling field,” geoscientist Lutz Hecht of the Natural History Museum said Friday. The whole thing is a sensation for research because everything from the impact to the discovery situation can be well documented.
The museum's researchers and their collaborators, including the Free University of Berlin and the German Aerospace Center, then found several more stones themselves. They discovered fragments of what is believed to be an asteroid, both about the size of a walnut, the museum said. Over the next few days, the composition and provenance of the pieces will be investigated in the museum's laboratories. Collectors from Poland want to sell their finds. It can be quite profitable, especially if you find something unusual.
This is not the first time fragments of small asteroids have been found. For example, at the end of April 2023, a fireball ignited above Elmshorn in Schleswig-Holstein. Soon after, meteorite pieces weighing from a few hundred grams to several kilograms were found.