Villalbeto de la Peña

A FLIGHT-ORIENTED, WITNESSED METEORITE FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN FALL

On January 4, 2004, thousands of people witnessed a daytime fireball streaking across the skies of northern Portugal, Spain, and southern France. Once the meteorite's strewn field was located, however, only a few dozen specimens could be found, implying that much of the meteoroid disintegrated during its fiery flight through the atmosphere.

The Villalbeto de la Peña meteorite – and this stone in particular – has many of the most desirable traits that meteorite collectors look for in a piece: it is from a witnessed fall; it is extremely flight oriented showing evidence of its aerodynamic journey through the atmosphere; only 4.6 kilograms of material has been found, as almost the entirety of the mass disintegrated when the meteoroid broke apart in the sky; and this piece has "hitchhikers" on its back, a rare formation in which small pieces of the stone melted, dripped to the back of the piece as it hurtled through the sky, and then resolidified on the cooler trailing edge of the stone before crash landing on Earth.

REFERENCES:

Meteoritical Bulletin Entry for Villalbeto de la Peña