Three thousand nine hundred two pounds! That’s the weight of the main mass of Jilin, China, an H5 chondrite that fell on March 8, 1976. And that weight, whether pounds or 1770 kilograms, is the world’s largest individual stone meteorite. Jilin displaced the Norton County, Kansas Aubrite which was the previous record-holding individual stone meteorite at 1070kg.
Now I remember when Jilin was just a teenager. At that time, my collection held a sub-10 gram polished slice of Jilin. More of a placeholder for such a massive stone. Collectively, over 4000kg of material from the Jilin fall was collected. And with numbers that large, the Meteoritical Bulletin just rounds the TKW to the nearest metric ton!
While the 1770kg main mass is obviously the showpiece of this fall and appropriately named Jilin 1, there are two other large individuals creatively named Jilin 2 and Jilin 3 making the vast bulk of this massive fall concentrated in a few very heavy stones. In the Catalogue of Meteorites, the global distribution of Jilin material outside of China in the kilo-plus range contains just one specimen of 2.18kg and one specimen of 1.16kg. The entire remaining worldwide distribution has no other large pieces. Only 225 grams are in the Smithsonian collection and 191 grams is the largest piece in the London collection. This makes my specimen of 223.8g one of the bigger samples in any collection outside of China. Additionally, mine is a complete individual which is quite rare given the slicing and dicing that goes on in meteorite labs as scientists squeeze the data from the rocks.
Jilin is Jilin. Years ago, Jilin also answered to the name Kirin, but in MetBul 59 (June 1981), a formal declaration was made to rename the Kirin fall as Jilin.
A description of the fall of Jilin includes “At about 1500 hr on 8 March 1976 a red fireball moving SW was sighted by townspeople of Hsinglung (46°26’N., 127°05’E.).
During flight there were several explosions. And in the last stages of flight three distinct fireballs were observed. The meteorite fragments were scattered along an E-W trending strewnfield extending from 126°10’E. to 127° 10’E. The largest mass was recovered at 44°03’N., 126°10’E.”
Today, Jilin 1, 2 and 3 are housed in what is described as the “only specialized museum in China dedicated to meteorites.” Further, “The museum incorporates modern high-tech methods, combining sound, light, and electricity to showcase and interpret the charm of celestial bodies, the magnificent panorama of the entire celestial sky, the origin and development of the Jilin meteorite shower, as well as humanity’s exploration and imagination of the universe and life sciences.”
A set of three Chinese commemorative stamps celebrate the Jilin meteorite fall. One stamp shows the incoming fireball’s descent above the countryside. Another stamp presents the solar system origin of the meteorite and its dispersal across the strewnfield. And predictably, the third stamp is the massive individual Jilin 1.
Today, as Jilin begins its 49th trip around the sun as a resident of Earth, I realize that my pursuit of historic witness falls now includes what were once to me more contemporary events. And the only way a teenage fall can become a historic fall is by getting older. And if I remember well the year it fell even if I was not aware of the event itself, I too must be getting older. But historic?
Until next time….
