First research results on the "spectacular meteorite fall" of Flensburg

Planetologists Addi Bischoff ( left ) and Markus Patzek with the meteorite 'Flensburg' in front of the scanning electron microscope. WWU - Michael C. Möller Planetologists from Münster University show that the meteorite contains minerals that formed under the presence of water on small planetesimals in the early history of our solar system. A fireball in the sky, accompanied by a bang, amazed hundreds of eyewitnesses in northern Germany in mid-September last year. The reason for the spectacle was a meteoroid entering the Earth's atmosphere and partially burning up. One day after the observations, a citizen in Flensburg found a stone weighing 24.5 grams and having a fresh black fusion crust on the lawn of his garden. Dieter Heinlein, coordinator of the German part of the European Fireball Network at the German Aerospace Center in Augsburg, directly recognized the stone as a meteorite and delivered the rock to experts at the "Institut für Planetologie" at Münster University. Prof. Addi Bischoff and PhD student Markus Patzek have been studying the stone mineralogically and chemically ever since.