Within the sovereign borders of Ukraine, over 40 meteorites have been discovered with many of them witnessed falls. Many of them now also considered historic falls and finds, with many of those also rare types. And luckily, many available for our collections. My personal collection contains about 10 different Ukrainian meteorites specimens, and at one time many more when I was content with micro-sized representatives.
For this somber installment of The Accretion Desk, I would like to highlight a particular meteorite from Ukraine as well as share some links to my past articles here at the Meteorite Times where I showcased Ukrainian meteorites.
Here are the links:
Chervony Kut, a glorious eucrite with gorgeous crust and a fascinating interior. (fell 1939)
Borkut, an odd dark matrix filled absolutely packed with chondrules. (fell 1852)
Yurtuk, a classic glossy black howardite that hit a house. (fell 1936)
And here is another Ukrainian meteorite, a near complete individual from Knyahinya which arrived in a massive fall of over a thousand individuals with a total known weight over 500 kg. This L/LL5 chondrite fell on June 9, 1866 following a bright fireball and loud detonations. While many individuals fell, an single individual weighed an astonishing 293kg alone.
But today, those loud detonations in Ukraine are not the joy of fresh deliveries from interplanetary space, but rather a horror worthy of apocalyptic thoughts. Raining from the sky are now bombs, missiles and projectiles all steering future history into a dark chapter where, like many of our historic meteorites, the place and time of the space is in question.
I think back to the Borodino meteorite and consider how the War of 1812 when Napoleon marched on Moscow is being replayed but with different characters and directions. The longing to occupy what you don’t have is a powerful drug for those in command of a military force. Of course this current situation has a different spin on politics, economics, treaties, and anything else one throws into the meat grinder of history, but the view from space still shows soldiers forced into a battle many don’t want for land they don’t need, and no clear path to stop it peacefully.
So Ukraine, we hold your meteorites with special care and attention right now. And as you might recall, when Knyahinya fell back in 1866, we here in the USA were struggling to come to terms with our own battle. Our war with ourselves had just ended, but our country continued on. May you have the same success we did.
Until next time….
