Hoba meteorite, a fallen ‘shooting star’!

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), meteorites are meteoroids (space rocks) that travel through the atmosphere of a planet at high speeds, survive those atmospheric pressures and hit the ground. Excitingly enough, Namibia has one of these extraterrestrial objects in her backyard!

The Hoba Meteorite is the world’s largest known intact single meteorite and remains one of Namibia’s most intriguing natural wonders. Found and named after a farm called Hoba West in the Otjozondjupa region, this celestial relic, fell on earth approximately 80 000 years ago and has never been moved.

Discovered by chance in 1920 by a farmer named Jacobus Hermanus Brits. A statement kept at the Grootfontein Museum details the discovery and reads as follows:

“One winter as I was hunting at the farm Hoba, I noticed a strange rock. I sat down on it. Only its upper part was visible. The rock was black, and all around it was calcareous soil. I scratched the rock with my knife and saw there was a shine beneath the surface. I then chiselled off a piece and took it to the SWA Maatskappy at Grootfontein, whose director established it to be a meteorite.”

The Hoba Meteorite is an anomaly in many ways. Unlike most meteorites that leave behind impact craters, this cosmic giant is believed to have struck the Earth’s atmosphere at low-velocity and at a shallow angle. Its descent slowed it down significantly, preventing the formation of a preserved impact crater, allowing it to remain largely intact upon landing.

Roughly rectangular in shape and relatively flat topped, it is 2.7 metres long and weighs an estimated 60 tonnes; initial size was recorded to be 66 tonnes but erosion, scientific sampling and vandalism has reduced that number. The meteorite is twice the size of other known fragments found in Greenland (Cape York) and Argentina (Campo del Cielo (Gancedo). It is composed of approximately 84% iron and 16% nickel, with traces of cobalt and has, therefore, been classified as an ataxite meteorite due to its high iron composition.

In 1955, the Hoba Meteorite was declared a national monument and in 1987, the owner of the farm donated the site of the monument to the government, then South West Africa, for education purposes. Since then, a stone amphitheatre has been constructed alongside an information centre for travellers on the origins of this national treasure.