What Is the Largest Meteorite Ever Found?
Meteorite Science
The largest meteorite ever found on Earth is the Hoba meteorite in Namibia, weighing approximately 60 tons. It has never been moved. It remains exactly where it landed, a national monument sitting in a field near Grootfontein, and it is the largest known piece of natural iron on the planet's surface.
The Hoba Meteorite
The Hoba meteorite, Grootfontein, Namibia. At approximately 60 tons and 2.7 meters across, it has never been moved from its discovery site. Photo: Giraud Patrick / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.5
Hoba was discovered in 1920 by a farmer plowing a field near Grootfontein in what is now Namibia. The plow struck something metallic beneath the surface, and excavation revealed an extraordinary iron mass that measured roughly 2.7 by 2.7 meters across and about 0.9 meters thick. Its composition is approximately 84% iron and 16% nickel, consistent with an iron meteorite of the ataxite class.
Unlike most large iron meteorites, Hoba created no detectable crater. Scientists attribute this to an unusually shallow atmospheric entry angle that caused the object to decelerate dramatically before impact. Arriving at relatively low terminal velocity, it essentially buried itself without the explosive energy typical of hypervelocity impacts.
The meteorite has been designated a national monument by the Namibian government and remains at the discovery site, accessible to visitors. It has never been moved, in part because no practical method of transporting a 60-ton metal object without damage exists, but also because it has legally been declared immovable as a protected site.
Despite its protected status, Hoba has suffered from souvenir hunters over the decades, and its estimated mass has declined somewhat from its original weight as pieces have been chipped away. An amphitheater and visitor center were constructed around it in the 1980s to help protect it and manage tourist access.
The Largest Meteorites on Record
Hoba is by far the largest intact meteorite known, but several other exceptional finds rank among the most significant iron meteorites ever recovered.
| Meteorite | Mass | Location | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hoba | ~60 tons | Namibia | Iron, ataxite |
| Ahnighito (Cape York) | ~31 tons | Greenland / New York | Iron, octahedrite |
| Bacubirito | ~22 tons | Mexico | Iron |
| Mbosi | ~16 tons | Tanzania | Iron |
| Willamette | ~15 tons | Oregon, USA | Iron, octahedrite |
| Campo del Cielo cluster | 100+ tons total | Argentina | Iron (multiple fragments) |
The Campo del Cielo strewn field in Argentina represents the largest total mass from a single impact event, with over 100 tons of iron meteorite fragments recovered across a wide area. No single piece approaches Hoba's mass, but the total recovered material exceeds it considerably.
Notable Meteorites in Detail
Cape York and Ahnighito
The Cape York meteorites are a group of large iron fragments that fell in northwestern Greenland roughly 10,000 years ago. For centuries they were known only to Inuit communities, who quarried them as a source of iron for tools and weapons. The largest piece, Ahnighito, weighs more than 31 tons and was removed by explorer Robert Peary in 1897 after considerable effort. It is now displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where it remains too heavy to be moved by conventional means and sits on supports that connect directly to the bedrock of Manhattan.
The Cape York fall is estimated to have involved a parent body weighing somewhere between 200 and 400 tons, of which only a fraction has been recovered. The Savik and Woman meteorites are among the other named fragments from the same fall.
Willamette Meteorite
The Willamette meteorite is the largest meteorite ever found in the United States, weighing approximately 15.5 tons. It was discovered in 1902 in what is now the state of Oregon by Ellis Hughes, who secretly transported it several hundred meters across property boundaries in a remarkable feat of improvised engineering, building a makeshift cart and road over several months to move it to his own land before the claim was discovered.
The meteorite is distinguished by its unusual pitted surface, formed not by atmospheric ablation but by weathering over thousands of years after landing. Rain and groundwater dissolved iron sulfide inclusions, leaving the deep cavities visible today. It is now displayed at the American Museum of Natural History, where it shares space with Ahnighito.
The Willamette meteorite on display at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. At 15.5 tons it is the largest meteorite found in the United States. The deep pits were formed by post-landing weathering, not atmospheric entry. Photo: Mike Cassano / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
Campo del Cielo
The Campo del Cielo strewn field in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina is one of the most extensively documented meteorite falls in history. The impact created a series of craters scattered over an area of roughly 3 by 18 kilometers, and iron meteorite fragments have been recovered from the region since at least the 16th century, when Spanish explorers documented the site based on local indigenous knowledge of the metal deposits.
Individual fragments range from small pieces to the Gancedo meteorite, recovered in 2016 and weighing approximately 30 tons, making it the second largest individual meteorite fragment on record after Hoba. Campo del Cielo material is among the most widely available iron meteorite specimens on the collector market.
Why Large Meteorites Are So Rare
The Earth's atmosphere is a remarkably effective shield. Most meteoroids that enter it are destroyed entirely before reaching the ground, and even those that survive lose a significant fraction of their mass to ablation during the descent. The larger an object, the more mass it retains relative to the surface area experiencing heating, which is why larger meteoroids are more likely to produce recoverable meteorites. But the forces involved in atmospheric entry are also proportionally destructive.
A meteoroid large enough to survive intact to the surface carries enormous kinetic energy. The transition from space rock to crater involves energy releases that can far exceed nuclear weapons. Objects like Hoba are rare precisely because the conditions that allow intact survival are very narrow.
For a massive iron meteoroid to survive like Hoba did, it needed to enter at a shallow angle to maximize atmospheric deceleration without fragmenting, be composed of coherent, high-density iron rather than more fragile stony material, and happen to avoid the thermal and mechanical stresses that shatter most large objects during descent. That combination of circumstances is exceptional.
Where Large Iron Meteorites Come From
Every large iron meteorite represents a piece of an asteroid's metallic core. In the early solar system, some asteroids grew large enough and hot enough for their interiors to melt and differentiate. Heavy iron and nickel sank to form a metallic core, just as happened inside Earth. When these differentiated asteroids were later disrupted by collisions, their cores were exposed and fragmented. The resulting iron masses drifted through the solar system until some of them encountered Earth.
The composition of iron meteorites reflects this origin. High nickel content, chemical group classifications tied to distinct parent bodies, and the Widmanstätten crystal structure that forms only during millions of years of slow cooling deep inside an asteroid all point to the same history: these are fragments of worlds that no longer exist.
Related Questions
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Hoba meteorite located?
The Hoba meteorite remains exactly where it was discovered in 1920, on a farm near Grootfontein in Namibia. It has never been moved and is now a protected national monument with a visitor center built around it.
Why did the Hoba meteorite not create a crater?
Scientists believe Hoba entered the atmosphere at a very shallow angle, which maximized atmospheric drag and caused it to decelerate significantly before impact. Arriving at relatively low terminal velocity rather than hypervelocity, it buried itself without releasing the explosive energy that creates impact craters.
What is the largest meteorite in the United States?
The Willamette meteorite, found in Oregon in 1902, is the largest meteorite ever recovered in the United States. It weighs approximately 15.5 tons and is currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Are there larger meteorites in space?
Yes, by a considerable margin. Many asteroids in the solar system are vastly larger than any meteorite found on Earth. The asteroid Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, is about 940 kilometers across. Even much smaller near-Earth asteroids dwarf the Hoba meteorite. What reaches Earth's surface as a meteorite is only the material that survives atmospheric entry intact.
What type of meteorite is Hoba?
Hoba is classified as an iron meteorite of the ataxite type. Ataxites have very high nickel content, around 16% in Hoba's case, which prevents the Widmanstätten crystal structure from developing. Unlike most iron meteorites, an etched surface of Hoba does not reveal the characteristic interlocking kamacite and taenite bands.
Can pieces of famous meteorites like Campo del Cielo be purchased?
Yes. Campo del Cielo meteorite material is among the most widely available iron meteorites on the collector market. Fragments ranging from small slices to larger individuals are regularly sold by specialist dealers. Hoba material is not commercially available as the site is a protected national monument.
