Meteorite Week

Meteorites from Lower Saxony

Meteorite falls, often associated with spectacular light and sound phenomena, have always fascinated people. Initially often interpreted as divine signs or worshiped as cult objects in various cultures, meteorites could be correctly interpreted at the latest from the late 18^th century and now increasingly find their way into museum and research collections.
 

Various observed falls as well as finds of meteorites are also documented for the area of ​​today's Lower Saxony. The oldest – reported in old chronicles – are a (dubious) iron meteorite from Oldenburg (1368), as well as two other falls in Nörten (1580) and Stolzenau (1647), from which the material must be considered lost.
 

Only four other falls and four additional finds of meteorites have been known since that time: 1855 – Bremervörde, 1863 – Obernkirchen, 1927 – Oesede, 1930 – Oldenburg, 1940 – Emsland, 1944/(1945) – Benthullen, 2013 – Braunschweig, and 2017 – Cloppenburg.
 

On the occasion of the 10^th anniversary of the last observed meteorite fall in Lower Saxony (April 2013), the State Natural History Museum (Staatliche Naturhistorische Museum) in Brunswick is organizing a “Meteorite Week” (April 18–23, 2023) in cooperation with the universities of Göttingen and Münster as well as the Bartoschewitz Meteorite Lab in Gifhorn and the Bavarian Meteorite Laboratory in Augsburg, and is showing several original specimens of stone, iron and undifferentiated meteorites from Lower Saxony.