Sena meteorite, Sena, Huesca, Aragon, Spaini

Regional Level Types
Sena meteorite	Meteorite Fall Location
Sena	Municipality
Huesca	Province
Aragon	Autonomous Community
Spain	Country

Ordinary chondrite, brecciated (H4,br; S1)
Fell, 17 November 1773; 4 kg

After detonations, a meteoritic stone was seen to fall. With distinct chondrules, olivine composition (Fa17), and shock-darkened areas Sena has been classified as a brecciated H4 ordinary chondrite. Opaques were thoroughly studied by Ramdohr (1973), but recent interest has been focused primarily upon the intriguing suggestion that Sena has escaped some - but not all of the - multiple impacts that beset an assemblage which once lay near the surface of an ancient asteroid and has been brought — by gravitational perturbation and asteroidal/meteoroidal impacts — to the earth's surface. Sena's K-Ar age (~4.5 Ga) is unusually large as most meteoritic gas retention ages have been reset by impacts occurring in the long interval between original planet body formation and final meteoroidal impact. On the other hand, an unusually brief cosmic ray exposure age of ~ 1.7 Ma has also been reported for Sena.

As an 'ordinary' H chondrites (relatively high in total Iron) Sena is a member of the second largest geochemical group of meteorite falls accounting for ~35% of all observed meteorite falls. Indeed, Sena was the first of the 51 witnessed falls listed exactly as an H4 meteorite with the Meteoritical Bulletin Database. Of Spain's 19 witnessed ordinary chondrite falls, only Sena and Cañellas, an 1861 fall, are classified as H4 chondrites. [Tallies of January 2016.]

Historically speaking, Sena was one of the several meteorite falls recovered and studied in the late 18th Century which helped scientists to realize that stones do, in fact, occasionally fall from the sky. Nearly half of the original mass is held at the Spanish National Science Museum in Madrid (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales).

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References