42. CRANFIELD FRAGMENT WITH CRUST
H3-5
Adams County, Mississippi (31°33’06" N, 91°11’36" W)
Fell April 27, 2022 / TKW: 596 grams
Cranfield is one of those rare events destined to reside in the Pantheon of Meteorites — and not just due to its exceedingly low TKW.
At 8:03 in the morning on April 27, 2022, a fireball was widely seen traveling south-westerly accompanied by sonic booms (AMS Event 2022-2591). Doppler radar revealed falling meteorites approximately 24 kilometers east of Natchez, Mississippi. Dark-flight modeling (the extrapolation of where meteorites are projected to land when a fireball is no longer seen due to deceleration from atmospheric drag) suggested meteorites landed both north and south of U.S. Hwy 84E, near the community of Cranfield, Mississippi.
Three days later, on April 30, 2022 Linda Welzenbach Fries, the former Curator of Meteorites at the Smithsonian recovered two meteorites smack in the center of the projected strewn field along with her husband Marc, a NASA planetary scientist who happened to be one who ingeniously came up with and refined the concept of using Doppler radar in the detection of meteorites. The specimen offered here was found by Roberto Vargas — with a terrestrial life form attached as pictured.
31 x 37 x 9mm (1.25 x 1.5 x 0.33 inches) and 20.17 grams.
Provenance:
Roberto Vargas Meteorite Collection
Macovich Collection, New York City
Estimate $5,000 – 6,000 * Reserve $4,500