{"id":23185,"date":"2021-01-17T09:58:39","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T08:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmaka.de\/?page_id=23185"},"modified":"2026-04-22T09:07:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:07:02","slug":"madura-cave","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/?page_id=23185","title":{"rendered":"Madura Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Madura Cave<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Meteorite fall (L5, 1.072 kg) near Madura Cave, Western Australia, Australia, on 20 June 2020 at 6:05 a.m. AWST (22.05 UTC, 19 June)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On 9 July 2020 astronomer Dr Hadrien Devillepoix and planetary geologist Dr Anthony Lagain were on a reconnaissance mission to assess the calculated fall area of a bolide recorded by the Forrest (029), Hughes (041) and O’Malley (063) cameras of the Desert Fireball Network above the Nullarbor Plain on 19 June 2020. Devillepoix and Lagain did some drone recordings of the area and rather by accident, while being on their way back to the car and after only two hours of walking the calculated fall line during their reconnaissance mission, Dr Anthony Lagain saw the 1.072-kg meteorite (~11 \u00d7 9 \u00d7 8 cm) right on an old telegraph track at location 31.96565 S, 126.98446 E<\/a> near Madura Cave, south of the Eyre Highway. The bolide’s luminous trail of 5.5 seconds was recorded from an altitude of 75 km down to 18.6 km. For the bolide’s meteoroid a rather unusual preatmospheric Aten asteroid orbit<\/a> has been calculated. The surprise find was announced in a Curtin University press release<\/a> on 30 July 2020. On 16 January 2021 the meteorite was officially registered in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database as confirmed fall Madura Cave<\/strong><\/a> (L5, W0). On 9 April 2026 Marcus Scott reported in social media that he had found another specimen of the Madura Cave fall. The specimen was reportedly found near the south-eastern end of the search area shown below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fall location of the main mass and area where fragments might be found. Image: DFN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Calculated area where fragments might be found. Image: DFN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KML<\/strong><\/a> of search area (source: DFN)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trajectory, recovery, and orbital history of the Madura Cave meteorite<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PDF (OPEN ACCESS)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hadrien A. R. Devillepoix, Eleanor K. Sansom, Patrick Shober, Seamus L. Anderson, Martin C. Towner, Anthony Lagain, Martin Cup\u00e1k, Philip A. Bland, Robert M. Howie, Trent Jansen-Sturgeon, Benjamin A. D. Hartig, Marcin Sokolowski, Gretchen Benedix, Lucy Forman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meteoritics & Planetary Science, First published: 1 June 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: Hadrien Devillepoix\/DFN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 1.072-kilogram ‘Madura Cave’ meteorite of a fall on 19 June 2020 found only twenty days after its fall at a location south of the Eyre Highway on an old telegraph track near Madura Cave. It was found rather by accident by astronomer Dr Hadrien Devillepoix and planetary geologist Dr Anthony Lagain after only two hours during a recon mission to assess the latest calculated fall area near Madura. Photo: Hadrien Devillepoix<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Curtin University’s Dr Hadrien Devillepoix pointing to the 1.072-kilogram Madura Cave meteorite found on an old telegraph track at location -31.96557, 126.98438<\/a> near Madura Cave<\/a> in southeast Western Australia on 9 July 2020. Photo: Curtin University<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hadrien Devillepoix bagging the Madura Cave meteorite next to its impact pit on 9 July 2020. Photo: Anthony Lagain<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The fall location of the Madura Cave meteorite on a dirt track south-southwest of Madura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Madura Cave meteorite in front of a model of a DFN camera. Photo: 9News Perth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The regmaglypted Madura Cave meteorite. Photo: Cyndi Lavrencic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Madura Cave bolide (DN200619_01) captured by the Forrest camera (029) of the Desert Fireball Network on 19 June 2020. Its much less elliptic preatmospheric near-Earth orbit had an apoapsis between the orbits of Earth and Mars and a periapsis between the orbits of Earth and Venus, an Aten asteroid orbit. Photo: DFN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Close-up of the ‘Madura Cave’ bolide’s luminous trail with at least two flares on 19 June 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marcus Scott’s find in 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 9 April 2026 Marcus Scott reported in social media that he had found another specimen of the Madura Cave fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marcus Scott’s find in situ. Photo: Marcus Scott (9 April 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n

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Marcus Scott’s find in situ. Photo: Marcus Scott (9 April 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marcus Scott’s find in 2026. Photo: Marcus Scott (9 April 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MEDIA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Meteorites in Two Weeks!<\/strong><\/a> (DFN, 30 July 2020)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Hadrien Devillepoix, Dr Eleanor (Ellie) Sansom, Dr Anthony Lagain discuss the finds. Video: Curtin University<\/p>\n\n\n\n