LL-chondrite

Five new meteorites added

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Long overdue, I have added five more meteorites with photographic orbits recently published in the scientific literature. One is Aguas Zarcas (CM2), which was published by Jenniskens et al. 2025 in March of this year (available here). The other four (all ordinary chondrites: Haag (LL4-6; Austria), Pusté Úlany (H5; Slovakia), Renchen (L5-6; Germany) and Hradec Kralové (LL5; Czech Republic)) come from a compilation of 8 fireballs recorded by the European Fireball Network and with corresponding meteorites recovered in the last decade, by Spurný & Borovička 2025 (available here), in a contribution to this years’ MetSoc meeting (four of the meteorites were already part of the database – I will strive to add different orbit solutions by different authors in the next version of the website)   . This brings the total number of meteorites with published photographic orbits to 60.

Note 1: A nice review paper was published by Jenniskens & Devillepoix (2025) this spring. It contains a list of 75 meteorites with orbits, some from this compilation, and some others which I haven’t included so far as their orbit solutions are not published in the literature (yet, I hope). In the mean-time since publication of the review article, the list of meteorites with orbits has grown by the Haag (LL4-6) meteorite, also included in this update.

Note 2: for now, I will not further update the figures shown under “Plots”. The plan is to generate these automatically in the future.

Puli Ilkaringuru (H5) and Ischgl (LL6) added

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Puli Ilkaringuru is a H5 chondrite which fell in 2019 and was later found by the Australian Desert Fireball Network team. There is no paper yet, the orbital data are derived from the values given in the MetBull database, therefore, both the argument of perihelion and the longitude of the ascending node are not available (similar to the situation with Al-Khaddaf, Oman). I will add these values once properly published in a peer reviewed journal.

Ischgl (LL6) is a meteorite found in 1976 near the austrian village of Ischgl (close to the border with Switzerland). Only recently was it realized that a large fireball had terminated in the area, just a few years earlier, in 1970. A new publication by Gritsevich et al. suggests that this fireball is a very likely source for the Ischgl meteorite: it matches both the mass of the recovered meteorite, its find location and pristine condition. Also, the cosmogenic radionuclide and noble gas inventory of Ischgl can be brought into agreement with the inferred pre-atmospheric mass. This makes Ischgl the third-oldest meteorite (in historical sequence) with an orbit, predating the Innisfree fall by 7 years.

Full disclosure: I am a co-author on the Ischgl paper.

New paper out: Dishchii’bikoh in MAPS

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A new meteorite with an orbit has been published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science (MAPS): Dishchii’bikoh. It is a rare LL7 chondrite which fell near the city of Cibecue in Arizona / USA, and takes its name as pronounced in the language of the local White Mountain Apache tribe. Several fragments of almost 80 g total mass were recovered using the weather radar footprint of the fall. The orbit of the meteorite is remarkable for being relatively short (1.13 AU semi-major axis) and steeply inclined (ca. 21° to the ecliptic). Radionuclides suggest it was a relatively large meteoroid, at R = 60-100 cm. The cosmic-ray exposure age is quite typical for an ordinary chondrite, at 11 Ma. It seems likely the meteorite derived from the Flora family of asteroids in the inner asteroid belt, similar to other recent LL chondrite falls, like Stubenberg (2016) and Chelyabinsk (2013).

Full disclosure: I am a co-author on the paper. /m4