Narashino meteorite, Meteorite in Narashino, Japan.
The Narashino meteorite is a group of stone fragments that fell in 2020 in the city of Narashino, in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The pieces show a dark fusion crust on their surface, formed when the rock passed through Earth's atmosphere.
In July 2020, a rock from space entered Earth's atmosphere and came down in a residential area of Narashino, in Chiba Prefecture. The fall was recorded by sensors, which allowed researchers to pinpoint exactly when and where the impact happened.
The fragments went on public display at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo and at the Chiba Prefectural Central Museum. Both exhibitions helped everyday visitors understand how a stone from space ends up on a residential building in the middle of a city.
The fragments are kept in museum collections and are not always on permanent display, so it is worth checking before your visit whether they are currently shown. The two institutions involved are the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo and the Chiba Prefectural Central Museum.
One of the fragments was spotted by a resident lying on the railing of a shared corridor inside an apartment building, noticed the same way one might notice a forgotten object. This kind of accidental find by a private person is rare in the history of meteorite research.
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