GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, Nelson Mandela University, and Rhodes University have been working furiously over the past week, burning the midnight oil, to establish various facts about a meteorite that lit up the skies overhead the Eastern Cape town of St Francis on 25 August.
The results of their search were revealed at a media conference on Tuesday on the campus of Nelson Mandela University.
A fiery entry of the meteorite, estimated to have been between 1 and 2 tons, through earth's atmosphere was caught on a cell phone camera during a beach walk by Zoe van der Merwe.
The sonic booms were heard as far afield as Mossel Bay, and inland to Ceres and Petrusburg, and scientists have calculated that the flash was approximately 38 kilometers above the surface of the earth.
The biggest breakthrough for the team, after Zoe's video, was a call from Jessica Botha, whose 9-year-old granddaughter Elizé du Toit had made the rare discovery of 5 small fragments on a visit in the town of Nqweba, formerly known as Kirkwood.
After hearing the boom, and the sound of something falling in the garden, she described that they were “still warm” in her hand.
At the moment, permissions are being sought from landowners in the area to allow search parties to look for more fragments, and guesthouses in Nqweba have confirmed American and Russian guests who appear to be in the Meteorology field.
The meteorite should soon carry the name of the town. An official request has been submitted to The Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society, and will be named the 'Nqweba Meteorite'.
The submission includes descriptions, physical properties, chemical compositions and mineralogy.
This is the 20th globally recorded 'bolide' event of this year, and one of only 3 over South Africa in recent times. The initial macroscopic study confirmed it to be a bolide, a type of meteorite which appears as a fireball, and explodes with fragmentation, in a bright flash.
The scientists are confident that once the microscopic study begins, much more about its history will be revealed.
It is most likely a specimen of Asteroid 4 Vesta, one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a diameter of 525 kilometres. This giant space rock is barreling through space at speeds of an estimated 43,262mph.
Anyone coming across what they suspect may be a meteorite, are asked to document with photos before disturbing the scene, get the GPS location, and mark the spot.
Generally, they are heavier than the average Earth rock, and would most likely be black, with a 'fusion crust', which is from the heat of the re-entry.
Once a meteorite lands on South African territory it belongs to the State and is protected by the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA). Meteorites are governed by The National Heritage Resources Act.
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