The smallest pedigree fall event meteorite ever recovered: Pusté Úl’any — Physical, mineralogical, chemical, and radionuclide analyses
Juraj Tóth, Pavel P. Povinec, Daniel Ozdín, Robert J. Macke, A. J. Timothy Jull, Matthias Laubenstein, Ivan Sýkora, Ivan Kontul’, Miroslav Ješkovský, Jakub Kaizer, Jakub Zeman, Victory A. J. Jaques, Tomáš Zikmund, Martin Kareš, Jozef Kaiser, Tomáš Paulech, Pavol Zigo, Leonard Kornoš, Pavol Matlovič, Jiří Šilha, Roman Nagy, Mateusz Żmija
MAPS, Version of Record online: 04 March 2026
“Pusté Úl’any (PU) is the smallest recovered pedigree fall event meteorite so far and, moreover, was observed during daylight. The results of physical and mineralogical analyses of the new meteorite fall instrumentally observed on June 25, 2022, in the western part of Slovakia are presented. The meteorite fragment of 8.55 g mass was recovered on August 20, 2022, in the strewn field within 100 m of the predicted area of equivalent mass fragments. Mineralogical analyses, computed tomography, physical properties such as bulk and grain densities, as well as magnetic susceptibility were carried out, confirming that PU is an ordinary chondrite of H5 type. Analysis of cosmogenic radionuclides confirmed a fresh fall of the meteorite and helped estimate a pre-atmospheric radius of the meteorite to be 19 ± 4 cm with a corresponding mass of 98 ± 24 kg, and a minimum cosmic-ray exposure age of 2–3 Myr.”
