Partial Slice of a Lost City Meteorite
Tracked and Recovered by the Smithsonian's Prairie Meteorite Network
Auction Closed
July 14, 07:13 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Partial Slice of a Lost City Meteorite — Tracked and Recovered by the Smithsonian's Prairie Meteorite Network
Chondrite — H5
Area surrounding Lost City, Oklahoma, USA (36° 0' 30"N, 95° 9' 0"W)
Witnessed Fall on January 4, 1970
92 x 41 x 6.25 mm (3⅝ x 1⅝ x ¼ inches). 61 grams (.13 lb).
Included in the lot is a photograph from the Smithsonian's Prairie Meteorite Network of a Lost City meteorite as it landed on Earth.
Formerly in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
THE ONLY METEORITE TRACKED AND RECOVERED BY THE SMITHSONIAN'S PRAIRIE METEORITE NETWORK
The Lost City meteorite is one of the most important American meteorites, its discovery the result of a years long project by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to track meteors in the sky and to help find meteorites once they touched down on Earth.
Until the Lost City meteorite touched down in a sparsely populated region of northeastern Oklahoma on January 4, 1970, the Smithsonian's Prairie Meteorite Network had been operating for eight years, and had yet to result in any meteorite finds. But four of the Prairie Network's 16 cameras - in conjunction with the Oklahomans who witnessed the fireball and heard the sonic boom as the bolide as it streaked through the sky - helped determine where the meteorite should have landed. Indeed, a week later, a field manager for the Prairie Meteorite Network discovered the landing site for Lost City, which would turn out to be the only meteorite ever recovered by the Network.
Despite the Smithsonian's lack of success in finding other meteorites, the tracking of Lost City represented an enormous leap forward in meteoritics: as earth science communicator Sara Pratt has written, "the photographs of the Lost City fireball also allowed astronomers to calculate not only the meteor's trajectory, but also its orbit. At a time when the connection between asteroids and meteorites was still being debated, researchers traced the meteor's origins back to the asteroid between Mars and Jupiter." This now undisputed fact, that the vast majority of meteorites originate from the asteroid belt, was proved by the Prairie Network and its tracking of this meteorite, offered here alongside a photograph of its final descent.
REFERENCES:
Meteoritical Bulletin Entry for Lost City