Supposedly the World's Largest Meteorite

This past Friday night I built a fire in our back yard and we roasted marsh mallows with the kids, and the big kids had some also! :) As we sat by the fire, Cameron and I were looking at the millions of stars overhead and the milky way crossing the sky. I told him to watch for shooting stars. This led to the questions about how stars fall out of the sky, to the fact that they are really meteorites flying through space.

He said it would be cool to have one fall in the back yard!! I explained why that would not be a good thing to happen. It just so happens that in our bigger back yard, about 5 miles away, is the Hoba Meteorite. It is supposedly the largest known meteorite on earth. So we loaded the van up Saturday morning to show Cameron why it is not good to have these fall in your back yard. There is no telling how many animals were killed when this thing hit.

It is about 7-8 feet in diameter, 4 feet tall and weighs a whopping 50 tons! It is really cool because it looks like a big rock, but it is all metal! 80% iron, which is why it has a brownish red color from the rust. It also has a mixture of other metals as well.

Here are a few pictures from the trip!