Kaposfüred

Abstract: An iron meteorite fell in Kaposfüred, Somogy County, Hungary, on May 7, 1995, at 3 a.m. (geographical coordinates are: 17°46'E longitude and 46°25'N latitude). The meteorite arrived from NE direction with high inclination path and excavated a ca. 1 meter deep crater in the garden of a local priest. The mass of the meteorite is 2.2 kg, its density is 8.14 g/cm³. INAA studies showed, that Kaposfüred belongs to the IVA group of irons.

The history of the fall: On the evening of May 6, 1995, Mr. Marcell Török^[2], a parish reverend of the Kaposszerdahely Roman Catholic Parochy (priest of the Kaposszerdahely Roman Catholic parish), decided that he would get up early in the morning to scythe the grass in his garden. Next dawn he was awakened by some brightness outside and while opening the door he observed the impact of a bright object at a distance of 7-8 m in his garden. He felt the turbulence caused by the incoming body and observed its shining tail. Since all this happened during the Bosnian war, his first idea was that a projectile had landed. He consulted his watch: it was 3 a. m. He went back to sleep and about 2 hours later he examined the mysterious object and found that it had dug up the soil in East-West direction. (He found that the impacted body had thrown out the soil towards the west, in the direction of the Kaposvár–Fonyód railway line). The diameter of the crater was about 1.5 meter and its depth was 1.1 meter. The crater was elongated towards Western direction and this fact signified the East-North-East arrival path. He also observed, that the projectile had decapitated one of his pine trees and melted the aluminium washing line. Then the priest tried to take out the object from the crater which melted his spade. Finally he managed to excavate it and put it in a bucket of water which was evaporated immediately.