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 Marcell Török^[2], priest of the Kaposszerdahely Roman Catholic parish, decided to get up at dawn to scythe the grass in his garden. Having awoken by some brightness outside he opened his door and suddenly observed an impact of a bright object at a distance of 7-8 meters in his garden. He felt the turbulence caused by the incoming body and observed its shining tail, but right then he closed the door. Since all this happened during the time of the Bosnian war, his first idea was that a projectile hit his garden. According to his watch it was 3 a.m. He went back to sleep and waited for the dawn. After about 2 hours, at dawn, he woke up and went out to see the object. 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 with a depth of 1.1 meter. It was elongated towards the west, in accordance with the east–northeast arrival direction of the falling body. Mr. Török also observed that the object cut down the peak of a pine and melted his aluminium washing line. When Mr. Török tried to take out the object from the bottom of the crater, it melted his spade. Finally he managed to lift the two-fist-sized metallic body out of the crater and put it into a pail of water, which was immediately evaporated.