Sikhote-Alin
Iron, IIAB
Fell February 12, 1947
Primorskiy kray, Russia

At around 10:30 am on February 12, 1947, eyewitnesses in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains , Primorye, Russia , observed a large bolide brighter than the Sun that came out of the north and descended at an angle of about 41 degrees. The bright flash and the deafening sound of the fall were observed for three hundred kilometers around the point of impact not far from Luchegorsk and approximately 440 km northeast of Vladivostok . A smoke trail, estimated at 32 km long, remained in the sky for several hours.

As the meteorite — traveling at a speed of about 14 km/s — entered the atmosphere, it began to break apart, and the fragments fell together. At an altitude of about 5.6 km, the largest mass apparently broke up in a violent explosion.

The strewn field for this meteorite covered an elliptical area of about 1.3 km². Some of the fragments made craters, the largest of which was about 26 m across and 6 m deep . Fragments of the meteorite were also driven into the surrounding trees as seen in the specimen below.

Sikhote Alin Fragment embedded in tree branch $SOLD