Camille Flammarion: Astronomie populaire, 1925:
The fall of Chandpur, India, April 6th, 1885 (L6, Tkw: 2.5lb)

Wiluna dist., Western Australia, Australia
Fell 1960, October, day unknown, 1300 hrs, Found 1970
Tkw: >100kg
Eucrite  AEUC

Eukrites mainly consist of pyroxene and plagioklas. Due to spectral features of its pyroxene, Millbillillie has been considered to be stemming from Vesta. Vesta is the geologically most diverse asteroid, 535km across; it is easy to observe with binoculars. Vesta was probably smelted by radioactive decay heat, so that more than 4 billion years ago lava surfaced and solidified into the "basalt" (SiO2-poor magmatic types of rock) that Millbillillie consists of. Under this basaltic crust, there is the olivine-bearing mantle, which lies bare due to major impacts, as can be seen on the geochemical map which was developed from images obtained through the Hubble space telescope and infrared observations of ESA. Chunks chipped off by such impacts may have been thrown onto new orbits, which cross the earth's orbits, and indeed in three such "earth crossers", 1983 RD, 1980 PA and 1985 DO2, excellent spectral correspondences with the lab spectra of eucrites and a high similarity to the reflection behaviour of Vesta was found.

The fall of Millbillillie was witnessed on a day in October 1960, at noon, the day, however was forgotten, and the meteorite not searched for. It wasn't until 1970 that the first piece was discovered. 13$/g.

Fullslice, complete crusted
ca. 4.9cm x 3cm x 0.4cm                    13.0g             $169

Stannern

IIglau, Jihomoravsky, Czech Republic
Fell 1808, May 22, 0600 hrs
Tkw: 52kg                         
Eucrite  AEUC

Well here's some piece for the collector of historic falls! The fall of this eucrite (cf. Millbillillie for information on the origin of eucrites) occurred at a time when the idea of meteorites indeed being stones from space was gaining ground (Chladni, 1794, des shower of L'Aigle, 1803).

Johann Peter Hebel, the sovereign master of the German calendar story, known to every German schoolchild from their primer, albeit without the author's name in his "Schatzkästlein des Rheinischen Hausfreundes" (german) relates a detailed account of the fall. 65$/g.

Diogenites contain 90% pyroxene and, like the related eucrites, have had a magmatic genesis. In contrast to these, they are calcium-poor (<3% CaO) and typically their colour is green. Due to their equal isotope proportions, howardites (these are breccias of diogenites and eucrites), eucrites and diogenites are usually subsumed into the so-called HED group. All these achondrites are supposed to have come from the same mother body, Vesta (cf. Millbillillie).

During the fall, the meteorite burst into thousands of tiny little stones, which rained down onto an area of some 500m across. There are hardly any pieces heavier than 10g, which means that for Tatahouine, exceptionally, the opposite of the general rule applies: here, large pieces are comparatively more expensive than smaller ones. Diogenites are rare, basically only Tatahouine and the more expensive Johnstown are permanently present on the market.

Fragment                 ca. 1.1cm x 0.7cm x 0.8cm                                        $20

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 Saturday,  11-Nov-2000