Nogata

[David Entwistle]

Looking a pictures from the Japanese local news sites it seems that there is festival, every five years, when one of the world's oldest observed meteorite falls is taken out of storage and put on public display. Nogata spends most of its time hidden away in a wooden box in a shrine, but has recently been given pride of place and paraded through the town.


image from asahi.com


image from asahi.com

Reports from asahi.com and mainichi.jp.

Meteoritical Bulletin entry:

Name: NOGATA
Place of fall: Nogata city, Fukuoka prefecture, Japan.
33°46'N., 130°42'E.
Date of fall: May 19, 861, at night.
Class and type: Stone. Olivine-hypersthene chondrite, amphoterite (LL) Olivine Fa27, orthopyroxene Fs22.
Number of individual specimens: 1
Total weight: 472 g.
Circumstances of fall: After detonations and a brilliant flash at night, a stone fell which was recovered the following morning by villagers from a hole in the ground. The stone has been preserved since its fall in the Shinto shrine of Suga Jinja, and the date of fall (April 7 in the third year of Jogan, i.e. May 19, 861 in the Julian calendar) is written on the wooden box containing the stone. However, the script is of a later date than 861, as is the box.