March meteor lands in Norway

A meteorite crashed through the roof of a family’s shed in Oslo, Norway, on March 12. It weighed 585 grams, which split into two pieces, and probably originated from a meteorite seen over Norway on March 1. Although not rare, it is unusual for a fragment to land on people’s property. The fragment is called a ‘breccia’ which is a rock composed of broken pieces or cemented together.

The last time a major piece of a meteorite landed in Norway was on June 9, 2006, when one crashed into the side of a mountain near Troms and Finnmark, believed to be of a considerable mass. Its impact could be heard and felt. NORSAR, the geophysics and seismology research foundation at Karasjok, registered its seismic tremor. Previously in Norway, a large meteorite impacted Alta in 1904, weighing 90 kilograms (198 pounds).

In south-eastern Australia, a meteorite landed through the roof of farmer’s hay shed on September 28, 1969 in the town of Murchison in the state of Victoria. A disintegrating comet left 100 kilogram meteoric rocks on the farmer’s property. Called the Murchison meteor, or Murchison rocks, were found to contain amino acids—the carbon compounds known to be the building blocks for life.

Martina Nicolls is the author of “Bardot’s Comet” (2011).

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