HENBURY METEORITE — COMPLETE SLICE FROM RENOWNED AUSTRALIAN METEORITE SHOWER

HENBURY METEORITE — COMPLETE SLICE FROM RENOWNED AUSTRALIAN METEORITE SHOWER

Iron, medium octahedrite - IIIAB

Henbury, Northern Territory, Australia (24° 34′ 21″ S, 133° 8′ 52″ E)

58 x 83 x 3mm (2.25 x 3.25 x 0.1 in.) and 104.7g (0.25 lbs)

First found in 1931 following reports of metal stones found by Aborigines in the middle of Australia’s Outback, more than one dozen distinct meteorite craters have been documented in the Henbury meteorite strewn field (the elliptical area in which a meteorite shower is dispersed across Earth’s surface). This meteorite formed billions of years ago within the molten core of an asteroid whose shattered remains constitute the asteroid belt. Ejected into an Earth crossing orbit, Henbury masses slammed into Earth’s atmosphere where they rained down almost smack in the middle of the Australian continent nearly 5,000 years ago — long after the arrival of the Aborigines and long before Great Britain turned Australia into a penal colony. Henbury is one of the great meteorite showers on record; the site of impact is considered sacred by the aborigines who inhabit the area and one wonders whether the frightening event of its arrival had been witnessed. This complete slice features Henbury’s visually arresting crystalline pattern in which alternating bands of kamacite and taenite, two iron-nickel alloys, are seen. As a cooling curve of millions of years is required for the molecules in what was a molten mass of an asteroid’s core to orient into their crystalline habit, this pattern is diagnostic in the identification of an iron meteorites. The robust medium octahedral pattern seen is encompassed by a rim of the meteorite’s external surface.