Spain’s Biggest Meteorite Strike Remembered 150 Years On
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 13:42
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Early on Christmas Eve, 1858 “people who in the streets, on pathways and in the fields saw a magnificent ball of fire appear, which shone with a brilliant, blinding light and all the colors of the rainbow, obscured the light of the moon and descended majestically from the sky”. This comes from a report commissioned by the person whose farm was struck by the largest meteorite recovered to date in Spain. In 1863, Queen Isabel II accepted it as a donation to the National Museum of Natural Sciences, where it has been conserved and exhibited ever since.