The Nantes Natural History Museum has just received an exceptional gift: a 177 kg fragment of the largest meteorite in France.
Fallen on Earth about 55,000 years ago, according to experts, this celestial body composed mainly of extraterrestrial metal (an alloy of iron and nickel) had been authenticated in October 2018 in Saint-Aubin, near Troyes, in the Aube department. .
As early as 1968, a farmer had spotted a piece of this astonishing rock and left it in a corner of his field, without suspecting that other fragments were in the area.
Research has identified more than 120 points of impact and fragments, the largest of which weighs 477 kg!
The heavy piece now belonging to the Muséum de Nantes was donated by the owners of the land where it was found.
Nantes was chosen, along with the Musée de Troyes and the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, because of the establishment's already remarkable collections in the field of earth and universe sciences.
Visible to the general public since last weekend, the meteorite is exposed very close to the Martian meteorite Black Beauty acquired in 2015.
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An impressive meteorite sighted in the south of France
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Nantes
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