[Rockhounds] Rare Walnut-Sized Chunks Of Meteorite That Exploded Over Germany Have Been Found

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Earlier this week, for only the eighth time ever, an asteroid that actually
came with a rare 95-minute warning
<https://www.iflscience.com/rare-75-minute-warning-issued-before-asteroid-hit-earths-atmosphere-above-germany-72555>
exploded
in the sky over Germany and the hunt began for any potential pieces of
meteorite that survived burning up in the atmosphere and fell to Earth.
Now, researchers think they have found them.

Fragments of asteroid 2024 BX1 about the size of a walnut have been
recovered by researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
<https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/press/press-releases/natural-history-museum-reports-further-suspected-meteorite-finds?bpid=624784723&chk=hFSi3DfLDf&mid=355396747&nlid=630174670>
and
colleagues, and will be now examined to confirm they come from the
celestial object. 2024 BX1 was only the eighth-ever object predicted to
have a 100 percent chance of colliding with Earth.

The asteroid was first detected about three hours before impact. Krisztián
Sárneczky at Piszkéstető Mountain Station of the Konkoly Observatory near
Budapest, Hungary spotted it in the sky and reported the finding to the
Minor Planet Center. This is the international system containing a database
of all the small bodies that move through the Solar System. The data is
then shared automatically with other astronomers.
https://www.iflscience.com/rare-walnut-sized-chunks-of-meteorite-that-exploded-over-germany-have-been-found-72657