The mystery of the Goba meteorite: no one knows what it is and where it came from on our planet. The Goba meteorite is the largest extraterrestrial guest on Earth

Usually the fall of large meteorites on our planet is accompanied by the appearance of significant craters. But not at this time. The Goba meteorite is one of the few space messengers that left virtually no traces of a landing.

It is the largest intact meteorites ever found on Earth. And it is located in Namibia, 20 kilometers from the city of Grootfontein in the northeastern part of the country.

Goba meteorite on the map

Geographic coordinates -19.592533, 17.933697
Distance from the capital of Namibia, the city of Windhoek 350 km
Distance to the nearest airport Grootfontein is about 20 km

This meteorite would have lain in the land of Africa, if in 1920 the owner of the surrounding territories, Jacobus Hermanus Brits, had not stumbled upon it while plowing a field. The name of this attraction came almost immediately and unpretentiously from the name of the nearby Goba West farm.

When this miraculous meteorite was dug up (it turned out to be simply unrealistic to dig it up) and measured, interesting features were revealed: it is, as it were, flattened from above and below, and has relatively flat edges. This largely explains the absence of a crater at the site of the fall of the cosmic body. Scientists suggest that the meteorite landed in this place like a flat stone thrown on the water surface of the lake. This event happened about 80,000 years ago.

Meteorite Goba in numbers

Dimensions - 2.7x2.7x0.9 meters
Initial weight about 66 tons
Volume approximately 9 cubic meters

The meteorite almost entirely consists of metal, this explains the large proportion of this giant. It is worth noting that in fact he never weighed himself.

The chemical composition of the Goba meteorite

Iron - 82.4%
Nickel - 16.4%
Cobalt - 0.76%
Plus small amounts of other metals such as zinc, iridium and chromium

According to updated data, today Goba has lost up to 60 tons. This is due to scientific research, natural impact, and most importantly, to banal vandalism - many tourists tried to “pin off” a piece of an extraterrestrial alien for themselves. Until now, traces of saw cuts can be seen on the meteorite.

To preserve such a rare landmark, the country's leadership in 1955 (then it was the government of South West Africa) decided to declare Goba a national monument.
Rossing Uranium provided additional funds in 1985 to strengthen measures to protect the meteorite from vandals. And in 1987, the owner of the Goba-West farm handed over the land, and, accordingly, the meteorite, to the state. Since then, a tourist center has been opened there, and the number of people who want to saw off or bite off a piece of an unearthly guest has come down to zero. The place is now ennobled and annually receives thousands of respectable tourists.

An interesting fact is that never since the moment of discovery, the Goba meteorite has moved anywhere, has not been transported, and even more so has not been transferred. He is still where his fate brought him tens of thousands of years ago.

Goba meteorite photo

"Space gifts" fall to the ground quite often. They come in different sizes, but mostly they are small fragments in which it is not at all easy to recognize an unearthly origin. Astronomers even managed to calculate that almost 100,000 tons of meteorite substances fall on Earth during the year. However, space giants are occasionally found among them. One of these is Goba - the largest meteorite found.

Why are meteorites rarely found?

Many people have a question: “Why are meteorites so rare?” Indeed, 100 thousand tons every year is a rather big figure, but usually meteorite fragments weigh several kilograms, and sometimes even grams. Not everyone can understand that under his feet is not just a stone, but a space alien. The small size of meteorites is due to the fact that when entering the Earth's atmosphere, the cosmic body heats up and lights up. The ablation process begins, as a result of which the mass of the object is significantly reduced. Most of the celestial projectiles do not reach the earth's surface at all. By the way, ablation is when particles of matter are carried away from the surface of solid bodies by a stream of hot gas or by radiation.

How was the largest meteorite on the planet discovered?

Evidence of how the largest Goba meteorite fell to Earth is no longer found. The fact is that this happened back in prehistoric times, when primitive man did not know writing. But a huge "heavenly stone" was found in the most banal way. While plowing his savannah, an African farmer from Namibia caught something very large with a plow. Having cleared the site, the farmer realized that it was simply impossible to budge this monster. The strange body attracted the attention of scientists, who confirmed its extraterrestrial origin. They gave the find the same name as the farm where it was discovered - Hoba West Farm. This event took place in 1920.

The farmer who made the unique find was named Jacobs Brits. He came to Namibia from Britain. The unique find gave him the opportunity to enrich himself by selling the meteorite in parts for souvenirs or for other purposes. But he considered such actions wrong and refused tempting offers. The farmer donated his find to the government of Namibia, not immediately, of course, but he did.

Weight and dimensions of the largest meteorite

Scientists have not been able to weigh the meteorite. They made calculations and found that when discovered, the meteorite weighed about 66 tons. In addition, a theory was put forward that at the time of its fall to Earth, about 80 thousand years ago, the weight of this body was within 90 tons. But today you can see the 60-ton Goba meteorite, as erosion, cutting off parts for research and vandalism from tourists have significantly reduced its weight.

The size of the Goba meteorite today is 2.7x2.7x0.9 m. Its volume is 9 m³.

The composition of the meteorite

From numerous studies, scientists managed to get an idea of the composition of the "alien". It is officially announced that the Goba meteorite (Namibia, 1920) consists of 84% iron, 15% nickel with cobalt impurities. About 1% is accounted for by impurities of other elements. The top layer consists of iron hydroxide. The crystal structure is defined as nickel-containing ataxite.

Thus, the Goba meteorite is classified as iron. For reference, we add that, according to the classification, meteorites are divided into 3 types, based on their composition:

Meteorites from mineral materials are called stone.
Metal meteorites are called siderites or iron meteorites.
"Aliens" from mixed materials are called iron-stone.

Classification helps to group specimens by common origin. Meteoritic matter can be part of a planet, asteroid or satellite, any object in the solar system that exists at the moment or existed in the past. But this classification is not final yet, it can and will expand.

Mysteries of Goba: where is the crater?

A huge meteorite threw scientists a number of mysteries. One of them is the absence of a crater. For some reason, the space visitor landed so softly that he was able to keep his shape and not shatter into a pile of fragments. There was no catastrophe during the fall, and there was no crater left. Although a small crater could appear and then collapse over time. It is possible that the fall occurred at a very small angle.

Another mystery is the unique shape

The Goba meteorite has a very unusual shape. A huge block looks like an almost regular parallelepiped. Fragments of objects of the solar system of this form hit the Earth extremely rarely, and they were much smaller than the giant Goba.

Scientists are surprised not only by the shape, but also by the outer texture of the surface of the meteorite. The alien is smooth, and its surface is almost flat. Initially, the color of the cosmic body was blue-black, but the Earth's atmosphere contains carbon dioxide, and the native iron that makes up the meteorite turned red.

Invasion of tourists

As soon as it became known where the Goba meteorite was located, tourists began to pilgrimage to the fields of Jacobs Brits. They trampled down crops and chipped off pieces as a keepsake. It became difficult to live and work on the farm, and the farmer began to ask the government to put up guards. Several decades passed before the Namibian government decided to listen to the requests of the farmer. The Goba meteorite was declared a national monument only in 1955. True, tourists ignored the government's ban and continued to chip off souvenirs.

The emergence of a tourist center

The final transfer of the land of the Goba West farm and the meteorite itself occurred in 1988. 3 years prior to this event, Rossing Uranium Ltd. put a guard around the meteorite from their own funds. And the destruction of the alien managed to be stopped. After the transfer of land, a tourist center was organized around. Its territory is fenced, and an entrance fee is taken. The money goes to the improvement of the center. So it costs money to approach a meteorite and take a picture against its background.

The center itself is like a botanical garden. Various trees have been planted here, and information boards have been placed. From all sides, clean paths converge to the center, and in the middle there is a three-tiered open amphitheater and steps leading to the “hero of the occasion”. Equipping the tourist center, the authorities understood that people would go there only for the sake of the Goba meteorite, so they were not very zealous, ennobling the surrounding panorama. Some information plates contain not so much important information as humor. One of them is written in several languages: "Beware of falling meteorites."

In fact, there might not have been a tourist center around the meteorite. The fact is that in 1954 the Natural History Museum of New York wanted to buy this stone of cosmic origin. A huge amount of money was allocated for this, but the museum workers faced an impossible task: to lift and transport a unique object over a long distance. They could not find a solution to this problem, so the museum abandoned the idea of purchasing it.

Double record holder

The Goba meteorite can be considered a double record holder. First, as mentioned earlier, this is the largest celestial object found on Earth. In fact, this one is the largest native piece of iron on the planet. Secondly, he was never moved from his place. For about 80 thousand years, the messenger of heaven lies exactly where he once fell.

Goba is the largest meteorite ever found. It is preserved at a crash site in southwestern Africa, in Namibia, near the Goba West farm. It is also the largest piece of iron of natural origin on Earth.
This metal meteorite weighing about 66 thousand kilograms and 9 m? fell in prehistoric times, and was found in Namibia in 1920 near Grotfontein. He got his own name from Hoba West Farm, where, in fact, he was found by the owner of the farm. He claims that he stumbled upon a meteorite while plowing one of his own fields.

The meteorite fell about 80 thousand years ago. It was found by pure chance, due to the fact that neither the crater nor the second traces of the fall remained. Apparently, the air slowed down the fall of the meteorite, and huge energy emissions did not happen.

The meteorite is also interesting in that it has a relatively flat and flat surface.

The Goba meteorite is a dense iron body measuring 2.7 × 2.7 × 0.9 meters, composed of 84% iron and 16% nickel with a small admixture of cobalt. From above, the meteorite is covered with iron hydroxides. In terms of crystal structure, Goba is a nickel-rich ataxite.

The meteorite was under no circumstances weighed. We are sure that its initial mass when it fell to the Earth was about 90 thousand kilograms. In the first half of the 20s of the XX century, its mass, according to estimates, was about 66 thousand kilograms, but erosion, vandalism and scientific research did their own thing: the meteorite "lost weight" to 60 thousand kilograms.

In 1985, Rossing Uranium Ltd. allocated funds to the government of South West Africa to strengthen measures to protect the meteorite from vandals. In 1987, farm owner Hoba West donated the meteorite and the soil it is in to the country. Then the government opened a tourist center in this place.

Every year, thousands of tourists come to see the meteorite. Acts of vandalism have come to naught.

Looking for UFOs. Namibia. Goba meteorite. Issue 01.

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1. Goba: the largest meteorite found (Namibia)
The largest meteorite found weighs more than 60 tons, and its diameter is about 3 meters. He fell into the territory of modern Namibia, presumably 80 thousand years ago. The celestial body was discovered relatively recently - in 1920, the owner of the Hoba West Farm, located in the southwest of the country, stumbled upon a huge piece of iron while plowing one of his fields. In honor of the farm, the find was named. Composed of 84% iron, the meteorite is considered the largest nugget of this metal found on Earth. In order to prevent vandalism, in 1955 it was declared a national monument, because since the discovery, the mass of Gob has decreased by 6 tons. In 1987, the owner of the farm donated the meteorite and the land on which it is located to the state, and now the government of Namibia monitors its safety.

2. Allende: the most studied among meteorites (Mexico)
The unsuspecting residents of the city of Chihuahua woke up around one in the morning on February 8, 1969. They were awakened by noise and a bright flash resulting from the fall of a 5-ton meteorite. A lot of fragments scattered over tens of kilometers, the total weight of which is estimated at 2-3 tons. The collected pieces "scattered" around the institutes and museums of the world. Scientists claim that Allende (Spanish: Allende) is the largest and most studied of the recorded carbonaceous meteorites. The report of American astrophysicists from the Livermore National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy states that the age of calcium-aluminum inclusions, which are rich in meteorite, is approximately 4.6 billion years, that is, more than the age of any of the planets in the solar system.

3. Murchison meteorite: the most "alive" meteorite found on Earth (Australia)
Named after the Australian city near which it fell in 1969, the Murchison meteorite is believed to be the most "alive" meteorite found on Earth. This is due to more than 14 thousand organic compounds that make up the 108-kilogram carbonaceous stone, including at least 70 different amino acids. Research led by Philipp Schmitt-Kopplin of the Institute for Environmental Chemistry in Germany claims that the meteorite contains millions of different kinds of organic molecules, which proves the existence of amino acids outside of our planet. According to scientists, the age of the meteorite is 4.65 billion years, that is, it was formed before the appearance of the Sun, whose age is estimated at 4.57 billion years.

4. Sikhote-Alin meteorite: one of the largest meteorite observed during the fall (Russia)
One of the largest meteorites in the world fell in Primorsky Krai in the Sikhote-Alin mountains in February 1947. The dazzling fireball he caused was observed in Khabarovsk and other settlements within a radius of 400 km. An iron body weighing 23 tons disintegrated in the atmosphere into many fragments in the form of a meteor shower. The fragments formed on the surface of the Earth more than 30 craters from 7 to 28 m in diameter and up to 6 meters deep. The largest fragment of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite weighs about 1745 kg. The pilots of the Far Eastern Geological Administration were the first to report the place where the celestial body fell. Chemical analysis showed 94% iron in the composition of the meteorite.

5. ALH84001: the most famous Martian meteorite (Antarctica)
This name hides perhaps the most famous of the 34 Martian meteorites found on Earth. It was discovered on December 27, 1984 in the Alan Hills mountains in Antarctica (the name of the mountains is recorded in the name with a three-letter abbreviation). According to studies, the age of the alien body is from 3.9 to 4.5 billion years. A meteorite weighing 1.93 kg fell to Earth about 13 thousand years ago. There is a hypothesis according to which it broke away from the surface of Mars during the collision of the planet with a large cosmic body. In 1996, NASA scientists published sensational data suggesting the existence of traces of life on Mars. When scanning meteorite structures with a scanning electron microscope, microscopic structures were revealed that can also be interpreted as petrified traces of bacteria.

6. Tunguska meteorite: the most "powerful" meteorite (Russia)
One of the world's most famous meteorites hit the Earth in 1908, exploding at an altitude of 5 - 7 kilometers above Eastern Siberia. An explosion with a capacity of 40 megatons knocked down trees on an area of more than 2 thousand square kilometers near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. Its blast wave circled the globe twice, leaving behind a glow in the sky for several days. In addition, a series of consequences of the cataclysm was completed by a powerful magnetic storm that lasted five hours.

7. Chelyabinsk meteorite: No. 2 after Tunguska (Russia)
According to NASA estimates, the Chelyabinsk meteorite is the largest known celestial body that has fallen to Earth since the Tunguska meteorite. They started talking about him on February 15 and do not stop discussing six months later. Exploding in the sky above Chelyabinsk at an altitude of 23 km, the meteorite caused a powerful shock wave, which, as in the case of Tunguska, circled the globe twice. Before the explosion, the meteorite weighed about 10,000 tons and had a diameter of 17 meters, and after that it shattered into hundreds of fragments, the largest of which weighed half a ton. The space guest, who brought world fame to the region, is planned to be immortalized in the form of a monument.

Meteorite Goba August 14th, 2012

Very large meteorites do not fall to Earth very often, and to see the largest of them, you need not rush to the museum, but visit the farmer's field, which is located in southwestern Africa, in Namibia, not far from the town of Grotfrontein. There you can see the famous iron Goba meteorite, whose dimensions are one by three and three meters, the volume is nine cubic meters, and the mass is sixty tons. He rests on the very spot where he fell a very long time ago - eighty thousand years ago. This meteorite, due to its enormous weight, cannot be moved from its place.

The composition of this “alien” is eighty percent iron, sixteen percent nickel, one percent cobalt, and other elements also account for one percent. The giant was under a layer of earth for a long time, until in 1920 a local farmer Jacob Brits accidentally hooked it with a plow while plowing his part of the savannah. The find got its name from the name of this farm - "Hoba West Farm". And, although during the fall of the Goba meteorite, according to calculations made by scientists, it weighed sixty-six tons, it lost almost six tons in weight. The traces of cuts testify to the great interest of researchers in this stone, who study this heavenly guest in the most detailed way, and numerous tourists also had a hand in it, seeking to take a piece of the meteorite with them as a unique souvenir. Centuries-old erosion also worked on it.

Besides that Goba meteorite is one of the largest known meteorites that has ever fallen on our planet, it is considered the largest piece of iron of natural origin, which gives the right to once again be convinced of its extraterrestrial origin, since iron in this form does not occur on Earth in nature.

Goba has more than enough riddles. Firstly, the unusual shape of the meteorite is surprising: space "aliens" in the form of an almost exemplary parallelepiped are infrequent guests on our planet. Secondly, the surface texture, which is rare for such objects, is quite smooth and almost flat. And, finally, another white spot that haunts scientists: how could it happen that a block of such a shape and size reached the surface of the earth without breaking from air resistance into hundreds of smaller fragments while flying through the earth's atmosphere?

In addition to its size and unique composition, this celestial wanderer asked scientists a riddle about his fall, because he did not leave a crater or other ground traces of a cosmic catastrophe. Some scientists believe that the fall could have occurred at a very small angle, and therefore the landing was soft, the meteorite landed unharmed. However, many believe that this happened so long ago that the traces could simply be smoothed out by natural geological processes, that is, time has worked thoroughly.

Science, however, does not burden the head too much with such nuances, since in 80 thousand years (that is how much our “space alien” has) all traces could well have been erased by natural geoprocesses.

Probably, if the meteorite weighed less, it would have been thrown aside and no one would have known about it, but it is not so easy to move a block weighing 66 tons. Thus, the heavenly stone came into the focus of attention of the relevant scientific circles, and with it the public at large. The increased interest did not bring anything good to poor Gobe - in just 30 years, tourists, farmers and scientific circles cut down 6 tons from the surface of the meteorite for souvenirs and samples for experiments. In 1955, the government of the then South West Africa decided to stop the disgrace and announced that from now on Goba is not a “simple stone”, but a national monument, although there was not too much sense from such an announcement, not to say any at all. In 1985, the private firm Rossing Uranium Ltd. she allocated some money from her own pocket to strengthen the security of an object of national importance, and three years later the owner of both the meteorite and the land under it and the Hoba West farm, imbued with the same national ideas, transferred Goba and everything nearby to the state. The state made a fuss, ennobled the panorama, carried out landscaping, reined in tourists and thus nullified the encroachment on tons of precious iron ore. So now Goba lies calmly to himself, showing the audience four of his six sides. By the way - no one has moved him from his place in history, he is exactly at the place of his fall. And yet - this is the world's largest piece of iron of natural origin, so Goba is a double record holder.

A little arithmetic:

Weight today - 60 tons (original 66 tons), volume today - 9m3, dimensions - 2.7 × 2.7 × 0.9 meters, composition - 84% iron, 16% - nickel with an admixture of cobalt.

An interesting fact: if the meteorite was smaller and did not weigh sixty-six tons, then the farmer who found it simply threw the stone that interfered with it to the side, but it was not easy to move such a block, which is why it interested the relevant scientific circles and the public. Over time, a unique stone could be sold for souvenirs, but in 1955 the Namibian government decisively stopped such a taking away of a wonderful find and proclaimed Goba meteorite national monument. True, this did not produce the desired effect, and the chipping off of pieces “for memory” continued.

In 1985, the private company Rossing Uranium Ltd. at their own expense, they hired enhanced security to preserve the national treasure. Three years later, the owner of the Hoba West Farm, and with it the land and the meteorite itself, imbued with a national idea, transferred all this property to the state. The state, in turn, ennobled it, carried out landscaping, fenced off and thus turned this place into a busy tourist center. Those who wish, for a fee, can approach the alien from outer space, touch it and take a picture, climbing this double champion - the world's largest meteorite and a block of iron.