Whetstone Mountains Meteorite Hunt


The event occured on June 23, 2009 at 9:22 p.m. MST (UTC -7 hours) in Cochise County, Arizona, United States . It is Classified as an ordinary chondrite (H5 breccia). A bright fireball with detonations and rumblings was observed by many witnesses. Carl Hergenrother estimated magnitude -11 fireball that created shadows, lasted for at least 2 seconds moving from the southeast part of the sky to the east and downward. Part of the path was recorded by the All-Sky camera at the UA-Multiple-Mirror Telescope facility on Mt. Hopkins and a security camera in Marana, AZ. Jack L. Schrader interviewed eyewitnesses and recovered the first 155.86 gram stone on the surface of the high desert less than 45 hours after the fall. Within a month of its fall, additional stones were found by a small group of hunters.