Albareto (meteorite)

Albareto
Type	Chondrite
Class	Ordinary chondrite
Group	L/LL4
Country	Italy
Region	Emilia-Romagna
Coordinates	44°39′N 11°01′E[1]
Observed fall	Yes
Fall date	July 1766
TKW	2 kg

Albareto is a meteorite which in July 1766 fell near the frazione Albareto, of Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. (This town is very often erroneously confused with Albareto in the province of Parma.)

Composition and classification

Albareto is a transitional ordinary chondrite between the L and the LL group. It belongs to the petrologic type 4.

History

The fall of the Albareto's meteorite is documented in a document "Della caduta di un sasso dall'aria" of the natural philosopher Domenico Troili.^[2] Troili didn't realize the extraterrestrial origin of the object but provided with his treatise one of the first chronicles of the fall of a meteorite.

In addition to describing the phenomenon, Troili carefully examined and noted the meteorite grains of a mineral similar to brass, which he called "marchesita" and that for long was thought to be pyrite (FeS₂). In 1862 the German mineralogist Gustav Rose analyzed the composition of this mineral, and determined a different chemical formula: FeS. Rose called this new mineral Troilite in honor of Domenico Troili^[3]

Notes

1. Meteoritical Bulletin Database: Albareto
2. From: http://www.gemma.unimore.it/doc/app_meteoriti.pdf^{[permanent dead link‍]}
3. Gerald Joseph Home McCall, A. J. Bowden, Richard John Howarth, The history of meteoritics and key meteorite collections, Geological Society, 2006, 206–207. ISBN 1-86239-194-7

See also

• Glossary of meteoritics
• Meteorite
• Meteorite falls
• Ordinary chondrite