Homestead
Seen to fall in 1875 in the United States · 230 kg recovered · L5
Homestead has the 23rd-largest recovered mass of the 1,063 observed falls in NASA’s Meteorite Landings dataset (records to 2013). It is the heaviest of the 76 L5 falls. Marion (Iowa) came down only 25 km to the north-east, in 1847.
- Group
- L chondrites
- Recorded position
- 41.800° N, 91.867° W
The map is centred on Homestead. Rings every 100 km; numbers match the table below.
Nearest recorded falls
Within 250 km lie five other recorded falls.
| # | Fall | Year | Class | Recovered | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marion (Iowa) | 1847 | L6 | 28 kg | 25 km north-east |
| 2 | Mifflin | 2010 | L5 | 3.6 kg | 174 km north-east |
| 3 | Vernon County | 1865 | H6 | 1.5 kg | 198 km north |
| 4 | Forest City | 1890 | H5 | 152 kg | 219 km north-west |
| 5 | Palmyra | 1926 | L3 | 135 g | 225 km south |
| 6 | Kilbourn | 1911 | H5 | 772 g | 271 km north-east |
What L5 means
L5 is the label for an ordinary chondrite with low total iron, petrologic type 5, moderately heated on its parent body. The nearest other L5 fall is Mifflin in the United States, 174 km away. In date order among L5 falls, the one before Homestead is Sevrukovo (1874, Russia) and the one after is Aachen (1880, Germany).
Homestead in the United States’s record
Homestead is the fifth-heaviest of the 146 falls recorded in the United States. In date order Homestead is number 28 of the 146 falls recorded in the United States, which run from 1807 to 2012. The fall recorded before Homestead in the United States is Castalia (1874); the next is Rochester (1876).
The 1870s
Homestead is one of 51 falls dated to the 1870s. Elsewhere, the record lists five other falls in 1875, among them Sitathali in India, Mornans in France, Zsadany in Hungary.