On the Hoba West meteorite

A photo composite of multiple exposures. From the photographer: “The very strong feeling I had by the Hoba West meteorite, back in 2015, when I visited this well-known largest ever found iron meteorite. Suddenly I felt how small we are and how lucky humanity is to be on this planet, protected by Earth’s atmosphere, our natural shield, from so many deadly dangers of the Universe just to admire the beauty of what surrounds us not only in our Galaxy. I stood up the meteorite carefully and respectfully and took an image of myself under the Milky Way, and only humbly gazed at the sky while the camera was working. At that time I was only thinking of how the stone I was standing on traveled somewhere there above in the sky, in the Solar System before it fell on Earth, and luckily didn’t destroy much so my existence and that moment were eventually possible.

The largest meteorite on the ground was found in 1920 by farmer Jacobus Hermanus Brits while plowing one of his fields nearby Grootfontein, Namibia, with an ox and heard loud metallic scratching. Shortly after the discovery and scientific analysis, the Hoba West meteorite was classified as iron-type (composed of about 84% iron and 16% nickel and other elements) which fell on Earth about 80 thousand years ago. Its unusual flat shape (with dimensions of almost 3x3x1 meters and a weight of around 60 tonnes) caused almost no crater while falling on Earth. In 1955 it was declared a Namibian national monument, last year it is accessible as a tourist attraction nearby Hoba West campsite, and protected from vandalism. In the image, taken in September 2015, it is me standing and gazing at the southern Milky Way on the cosmic stone, humbly thinking of how lucky, fragile and small at the same time we are in the huge Universe.”

Technical details: Canon 6D Baader IR modified, Samyang 24 mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, cut of 31×15 s panorama (captured from a tripod).