1571
Dronino Meteorit

Dronino meteorite

Diameter: 24 cm.
Weight: 7500 g.
Site of discovery: Oblast Ryazan, Russia 2000.
Age: 4 billion years.

Notes:
There is no other meteorite that looks like Dronino and the specimen now offered is remarkable. With a platinum-hued patina, this is a decorative example of a singularly exotic meteorite. Dronino evidences what is perhaps the most richly hewn surface texture of a meteorite known to exist. While the vast majority of iron meteorites are members of established chemical groups, 11% have no chemical relation to anything previously known and Dronino is one of these exotic, ungrouped irons. The implication of Dronino’s unique chemical signature is that it originated from a previously unknown parent asteroid. Dronino meteorites were recovered approximately 20 kilometers from an ancient town founded in 1152. As nothing was ever written about what would have been an extremely memorable event of a fireball accompanied by sonic booms and a smoke trail, it can be inferred that Dronino‘s arrival occurred when the area was unpopulated. From the distribution of the meteorite fragments it has been estimated that the meteorite formed a crater with a diameter of 30 m. The Dronino meteorite is classified as an ataxite (iron meteorite). The meteorite is named after the village Dronino where it was found. The meteorite was discovered by Oleg Gus’kov in July 2000 on his way home from mushroom collecting near the village of Dronino. He noticed a rusty piece of iron protruding from the ground. Suspecting it to be a meteorite but unable to exhume it, he returned the next day with a shovel and wheelbarrow. He brought the meteorite to his house, where it lay in his garden for the next two years. In this time the meteorite broke into three pieces. Gus’kov sawed one of the pieces apart upon which he realized that it was definitely a meteorite. After that he alerted different experts of his discovery.

This object has been individually compared to the information in the Art Loss Register data bank and is not registered there as stolen or missing.