Asteroid 2024 BX1 Successfully Recovered After Berlin Impact

Photo caption: "The first fragment of 2024 BX1 recovered by the Natural History Museum/DLR/Freie Universtaet Berlin team. Second from left in the image is team lead Lutz Hecht, while guide SETI Institute meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens shows the fragment discovered by student Dominik Dieter left of him. Far left, the second find was made by student Clara Weihe.

The asteroid that made its impact near Berlin last Sunday has now been successfully recovered. In a significant find, our team, including Dr. Peter Jenniskens from the SETI Institute, located samples #2 and #3 of the asteroid 2024 BX1 this afternoon. This discovery brings the total number of recovered meteorites from this event to four (status late Friday, by late Sunday there were several tens of fragments recovered).

Since Monday January 22, a dedicated group of 12-21 individuals have been scouring the field in search of small fragments. This effort was a collaboration among experts and students from the National History Museum (led by Lutz Hecht), DLR (Joern Helbert), and the Freie Universitaet Berlin. The initial search proved challenging as the meteorites bore a striking resemblance to common terrestrial rocks. Polish meteorite hunters Filip Samuel Nikodem, Michal Nebelski, Kryspin Kmieciak, and Andrzej Owczarzak first found a large fragment on Thursday afternoon. The persistence paid off just before noon Friday when Dominik Dieter and Cara Weihe, both students at the Freie Universitaet, discovered meteorites weighing 5.3g and 3.1g respectively.

Jenniskens guided previous searches for meteorites from asteroids that were detected in space prior to impacting over land in 2008 (Sudan), 2018 (Botswana), and 2023 (France).