Starfire from Siberia Giant Sikhote Aline Meteorite (30kg) 1947, Siberia, Russia
On 12 February 1947, at 10:38 a.m. local time, an iron meteor fell in broad daylight over the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in southeastern Russia. Witnesses described a fireball brighter than the sun, trailing a plume of smoke across the sky. Travelling at around 14.5 km per second (52,200 km/h), the meteor exploded at an altitude of roughly 5.5 kilometres, producing powerful detonations and shockwaves that shattered windows in nearby villages.
An estimated 23 tons of material survived the fiery descent, scattering thousands of fragments across a strewn field of about 1.3 square kilometers. Many impacted with such force that they created craters, the largest measuring 26 meters wide and six meters deep. The Sikhote-Alin fall remains one of the most spectacular and well- documented meteorite events in history.
Classified as a Group IIAB iron meteorite, Sikhote-Alin consists mainly of iron with 5.9% nickel, plus trace elements such as cobalt, phosphorus, and gallium. Its surface is typically marked by regmaglypts, shallow, thumbprint-like dimples formed by vortices of hot gas and molten metal during atmospheric passage.
The specimen offered here is a shrapnel fragment, created when the meteor violently broke apart in mid-air. Unlike aerodynamic individuals, these fragments display jagged edges and sharply angular forms, vividly recording the immense forces of the explosion. Their dramatic appearance and direct link to one of the great meteorite falls make Sikhote-Alin shrapnel pieces highly coveted by collectors.
