Nqweba (prov.) meteorite fall (~90 g, HED) in Nqweba (Kirkwood), Eastern Cape, South Africa at ~6:50:40-~6:50:50 UTC on 25 August 2024

26/08/2024 15:27 · by karmaka · in HED achondrite, meteorite, witnessed fall

Last update: 3 September 2024

Ek was by ‘n inkyk by my oupa op die plaas en ek het net my honde bal gespeel en toe het ewe skielik het rumbelling sound gekom in donderweer geklink en toegank net ‘n klip uit die lug uitval. (Eli-zé du Toit)

[I was visiting my grandfather on the farm and I was just playing ball with my dogs and then all of a sudden a rumbelling sound came in thunder and then a stone just fell out of the sky.]

Five meteorite fragments of a single mass (HED) weighing slightly less than 90 grams (5 cm in diameter) of the daytime bolide at ~8:50.40-~8:50.50 SAST (~6:50:40-~6:50:50 UTC) on 25 August 2024 above Eastern Cape in South Africa have been found by Eli-zé du Toit, the 9-year-old daughter of Jesica Botha, near a Wild Fig tree while sitting on a porch in her grandparents’ garden in Nqweba (formerly Kirkwood). While she was playing ball with her dogs the girl, her mother and her grandfather heard a rumbling sound for several seconds which increased in loudness. Moments later Eli-zé heard the meteorite fall through a Wild Fig tree nearby. She immediately went looking for what had fallen. When she found the meteorite, which had fragmented into at least five fragments on impact, she touched the meteorite fragments which according to her “felt warm like a cup when you’ve just finished drinking the tea or coffee from it on the outside, but the inside felt cold”. The initial warmth of the meteorite’s fusion crust faded quickly since as she had carried the fragments back to the porch they had already cooled down. The largest fragment weighs less than 63 grams and is less than 4 cm in diameter. Eli-zé wondered how a stone could fall from the sky and told her mother about the find who after doing some research on the internet realized that the stone could in fact be a meteorite. Later Jesica Botha made the find public. On 26 August 2024 Jesica and Eli-zé handed the meteorite over to Nelson Mandela University’s Geosciences Department for analysis. The proposed and currently provisional name of the meteorite fall is Nqweba pronunciation (MP3). Zoë van der Merwe, MC Fereira and Stephen Sharp filmed the fragmenting daylight bolide entering the atmosphere above an area between Gqeberha and George and moving in an east-northeastern to northeastern direction while having a walk on the dunes near St. Francis Bay, Eastern Cape. They heard at least three detonation booms which died away in a low rumble at around 6:55 UTC. On 3 September 2024 University of the Witwatersrand, Rhodes University, and Nelson Mandela University held a joint press conference about the meteorite fall at 10 a.m. at Nelson Mandela University in Summerstrand, Gqeberha. The preatmospheric size of the meteoroid is estimated to have been about 1-1.5 metres in diameter and the pre-impact velocity was about 20.1 m/s. The main flare and fragmentation event was calculated to be at an altitude of about 38.2 kilometres above location 33.6 S, 24.5 E at ~8:50.49 SAST (~6:50:49 UTC) radiating an energy of about 2.6e10 Joules with a calculated total impact energy of 0.092 kilotons of TNT.

Paragraph 32 of the South African National Heritage Resources Act of 1999 regulates the legal status of meteorites found in South Africa as ‘heritage objects’.

MEDIA

Snow Report (25 August 2024)

“Space junk” that fell in Eastern Cape was a car-size meteorite (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 26 August 2024)