Meteorite hunters may have found the largest known chunk of the Bronze Age Kaali Meteorite.

Two Polish meteorite hunters, Filip Nikodem and Andrzej Owczarzak, have recovered what they believe to be a fragment of the Kaali Meteorite, a large body which impacted the Estonian island of Saaremaa about 3500 years ago. The piece is reported to weigh about 40 kg, with a second fragment weighing 15 kg also found. The largest potential fragment of the meteorite discovered to date weighed 5.7 kg, and was found by Filip Nikodem in the spring of 2024.

A 40 kg potential fragment of the Kaali Meteorite found in Estonia by two Polish Meteorite Hunters. Z głową w gwiazdach/Facebook.

The Kaali Impact Structures are a series of nine circular crater lakes on the island of Saaremaa, the largest of which has a diameter of 110 m and a depth of 22 m. These are thought to have been caused by an object with a mass of between 20 and 80 tonnes entering the atmosphere at a velocity of somewhere between 10 and 20 km per second, and exploding in a fireball between 10 and 5 km above the ground. This explosion is thought to have largely vaporised the bolide, as well as removing about 81 000 m³ of rock on the ground, and incinerating vegetation up to 6 km from the impact site.  

The lake in the main Kaali Meteorite Crater on Saaremaa Island. The crater is about 110 m across, but the lake only occupies the central part of it. Wikimedia Commons.

This is thought to have happened about 3500 years ago, when the island was occupied by a Bronze Age population, although attempts to date the site and meteorite fragments from it have produced dates of between 5600 and 400 BC. A Bronze Age arrowhead made from meteoric iron which was found in Switzerland in the 1870s has been linked to the Kaali meteorites on the basis of its metallurgy, making a date of around 1500 BC more plausible.

(a) Overview of the Mörigen arrowhead (A/7396). Note adhering bright sediment material. Remnants of an older label on the left of the sample number. Total length is 39.3 mm. ( b) Side view of the Mörigen arrowhead. Layered texture is well visible. Point is to the right. Thomas Schüpbach in Hofmann et al. (2023).

Prior to 2023, the largest fragment of meteorite found at the Kaali sites weighed 6.21 g. However, in the autumn of that year Filip Nikodem obtained a search permit for the area, and, using a metal detector, found a series of pieces of iron which he believed to be meteoric in origin. These were handed to the Estonian National Heritage Board, who sent them to the University of Tartu, where a rapid X-ray fluorescence analysis found that the iron pieces contained between 0.6% and 4.8% nickel, as well as traces of titanium and vanadium, which is typical of meteoric iron.

The four pieces of meteoric iron handed to the Estonian National Heritage Board  by Filip Nikodem in 2023. Kristo Oks/University of Tartu.

In the spring of 2024, Filip Kikodem returned to the Kaali Lakes, collecting several more fragments with a total mass of 10.5 kg, the largest of which weighed 5.7 kg, making it (at that time) potentially the largest chunk of the Kaali bolide ever discovered. However, despite requests from the Estonian National Heritage Board, these pieces have never been surrendered to them. Instead, the Estonian authorities believe that the pieces were taken to Poland, where they are being analysed at a Polish university. Furthermore, the National Heritage Board received a letter from a lawyer in Poland, asserting Nikodem's ownership rights over the meteorite fragments.

A 5.7 kg possible meteorite fragment found by Filip Nikodem at Kaali Lakes in the spring of 2024. Filip Nikodem.

In the autumn of 2024 Filip Nikodem returned to Kaali Lakes, this time accompanied by meteorite hunter Andrzej Owczarzak, who did not posses a permit to search in Estonia, and was therefore in breach of Estonian heritage laws. At this time concerns were raised by the Estonian newspaper Saarte Hääl, which observed that the original search permit had been given to Filip Nikodem in relation to a two week project run by the University of Tartu in 2017, in which metal detectorists were given a short training course by the university then allowed to collect fragments for a display at a visitor centre, with the collectors being allowed to keep some fragments as a reward.

Saarte Hääl also noted that suspiciously large chunks of 'Kaali Meteorite' had begun to be offered for sale in Poland, and that some Polish enthusiasts had raised concerns that these might be fragments of the more common Morasko Meteorite, which fell near Potsdam about 5000 years ago. The newspaper also noted that Estonian law provides no specific protection for meteorites found in the country, although there are some restrictions upon where a metal detector can be used. 

Following the announcement of these discoveries, Jüri Plado of the University of Tartu applied for funding for a study on the feasibility of changing the law to protect meteorites found in Estonia, reasoning that such large objects would be a significant piece of national heritage and ought to be studied at an institute within the country, but this application was rejected. 

Local farmers talked to by Saarte Hääl stated that the Poles had shown them permits and promised to take any material found to the University of Tartu. However, several expressed doubts that the iron found was in fact meteoric, as it came from shallow depths on farmland, likely to have been disturbed since the Bronze Age, and resembled bog iron (impure iron deposits which precipitate out of solution in boggy soils). The newspaper contacted Kristo Oks of the Estonian National Heritage Board, who confirmed that it would be impossible to tell the difference between bog iron and meteorites without laboratory analysis. 

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Meteorite fragments recovered in Germany after fireball seen over northwestern Europe.

More than 3000 witnesses in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands have reported observing a bright fireball meteor at about 6.55 pm local time (about 5.55 pm GMT) on Sunday 8 March 2026, with some witnesses also reporting a sonic boom. The meteor is described as having moved from southwest to northeast for about six seconds before exploding in a fireball over the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. A fireball is defined as a meteor (shooting star) brighter than the planet Venus. 

A very bright fireball moving from the southwest to the northeast was observed by many people in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Bernd Klemt/AllSky7 fireball network/European Space Agency.

Objects of this size probably enter the Earth's atmosphere several times a year, though unless they do so over populated areas they are unlikely to be noticed. They are officially described as fireballs if they produce a light brighter than the planet Venus. The brightness of a meteor is caused by friction with the Earth's atmosphere, which is typically far greater than that caused by simple falling, due to the initial trajectory of the object. Such objects typically eventually explode in an airburst called by the friction, causing them to vanish as a luminous object. However, this is not the end of the story as such explosions result in the production of a number of smaller objects, which fall to the ground under the influence of gravity (which does not cause the luminescence associated with friction-induced heating).

These 'dark objects' do not continue along the path of the original bolide, but neither do they fall directly to the ground, but rather follow a course determined by the atmospheric currents (winds) through which the objects pass. Scientists are able to calculate potential trajectories for hypothetical dark objects derived from meteors using data from weather monitoring services.

Shortly after the meteor was sighted, two residents of a flat in the German city of Koblenz reported an impact which had caused a football-sized hole in their roof, as well as damage to a tiled floor in the room underneath. A search of the flat yielded eleven fragments of rock with masses of between 6 and 161 g. A number of smaller fragments were subsequently found in a neighbouring courtyard by professional meteorite-hunters and sold. Police in Koblenz have subsequently issued a warning to other meteorite-hunters in the area to respect private property, and not to collect suspected fragments from areas which they have not been given permission to enter.

The largest of the meteorite fragments recovered from a home in Koblenz, Germany, weighing 161 g. SWR.

The meteorite fragments have a pale interior and a near-black crust, making it likely that they are a type of stoney meteorite called a HED (howardite–eucrite–diogenite) achondrite breccia. These meteorites resemble terrestrial igneous rocks, and are therefore presumed to have come from a body large enough for magma differentiation and igneous processing to have occurred. HED meteorites comprise about 5% of all meteorites recovered on Earth, and about 60% of achondritic meteorites (meteorites which do not contain chondrules, spherules of glassy material thought to have formed from molten droplets in space before being incorporated into larger bodies).

Fragments of probable HED meteorite recovered from a flat in Koblenz, Germany. SWR.

While HED meteorites vary somewhat in composition, all are thought to derive from the surface of the Asteroid 4 Vesta. Studies of these meteorites have produced crystallisation ages of between 4.43 and 4.55 billion years, and all show signs of having formed in an environment where igneous differentiation has occurred. These meteorites are thought to have been dislodged from the surface of their parent body by ancient impacts.

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Looking for a relationship between Australasian tektites and BeLaU spherules.

On 8 January 2014, an object later known as CNEOS 2014-01-08 impacted the Earth off the north coast of Papua New Guinea. Based upon the speed and trajectory of this object, it was suggested by some planetary scientists that its original trajectory had been incompatible with a Solar System object, and that therefore it may have originated outside our Solar System. While this was never universally accepted, the potential for scientists to gain direct access to fragments of an extra-Solar object was sufficient that in 2023 an expedition was sent to the area to collect samples.

The calculated impact site of object CNEOS 2014-01-08. Loeb (2022).

This expedition recovered over 800 particles of potential extraterrestrial origin, about 80% of which were subsequently identified as pieces of S-type, I-type, and G-type chondritic meteorite (such particles are not unusual in deep-marine sediments, where the absence of much input from land means that the tiny amounts of meteoric material which fall all over the Earth can build up over time to form a detectable portion of local sediments). The remaining particles appeared to belong to an entirely new type of meteoric material, which were named D-type particles, which had an unusually low ration of magnesium to iron compared to other meteoric material. Within these D-type particles, a small subset was identified which were also enriched in the elements barium, lanthanum, and uranium, a highly unusual combination of elements, furthering speculation that these objects were of genuinely unique origin.

Back-scattered Electron Microscope images of differentiated spherules from each of the differentiated (D-type) spherule classifications: (a) D-type low strontium, high silicone (IS11M2–2; porphyritic) (b) D-type high strontium, high silicone (IS19M-14) (c) D-type, high silicone (17NMAG-5; vitric) (d) D-type, low strontium, low lilicone (IS21–4; cryptocrystalline) (e) D-type high strontium, low silicone (IS14M-2; cryptocrystalline) and (f) D-type, low silicone (S21 or IS14-SPH1; vitric) groups. The images (c) and (f) are also classified as 'BeLaU'-type spherules. The scale bar is 100 μm. Loeb et al. (2024).

However,  the area where CNEOS 2014-01-08 impacted the Earth also lies within the Australasian Tektite Strewn Field, an area which covers about 15% of the planet's surface, from Southeast Asia through the western Pacific to Australia and Antarctica. This field is thought to have formed by the impact of an extraterrestrial object about 790 000 years ago, probably somewhere in Southest Asia (although the impact site has never been found). Across this area tektites and microtektites (spherical particles formed when rock vaporised during an impact recondenses in the atmosphere) with a distinctive high copper, nickel, and chromium profile are found. These tektites are thought to be comprised largely of terrestrial surface mater vaporised during the impact, with the additional cobalt, nickel, and chromium potentially coming from the impacting object). However, a full-spectrum analysis, comparing the elemental make-up of the Australasian Tektites to the BeLaU spherules has not previously been made.

In a paper published on the arXiv pre-print archive at Cornell University on 15 October 2025, Eugenia Hyung, Emma Levy, Loralei Cook, and Stein Jacobsen of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at Harvard University, Abraham Loeb of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University, and Jayden Squire and Juraj Farkas of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, present the results of a study in which the chemistry of BeLaU spherules was compared to that of Australasian Tektites.

Hyung et al. used four Australasian Tektites from the collection of the Tate Museum in Adelaide, two from Florieton in South Australia, one from Charlotte Waters in the Northern Territory, and one from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Between 50 and 100 mg of material was taken from each sample, crushed in a pestle and mortar, then dissolved in a mixture of hydrofluoric acid and nitric acid, dried down, then redissolved in hydrochloric acid. A sample of the resultant solution was then analysed for 55 elements using a ThermoFisher Scientific iCAP TQ triple quadrupole ICP mass spectrometer. The results from this analysis were then compared to previous analyses of BeLaU spherules, as well as the average upper continental crust, and previous results for Australasian Strewn Field deep-sea microtektites.

Panel (a) Primitive-mantle normalized elemental compositions of Australasian tektites compared to the average upper continental crust  arranged in order of most incompatible to most compatible elements. Panel (b): The average upper continental crust normalized elemental patterns of the individual tektites (red, green, blue, and orange) and the average of the four specimens (white symbols, black line). The number '1' represents the average upper continental crust (dark symbols), plotted alongside the average BeLaU abundance pattern (white symbols, grey line) normalized with respect to the average upper continental crust. Panel (c): Australasian-tektite normalized elemental compositions of BeLaU (white circles) and microtektites (grey squares). Here, the number '1' (black circles) represents the average of the Australasian tektites measured in this study. Hyung et al. (2025).

The four tektite samples were all similar to one another (there was some variant in calcium content. as well as being similar to the microtektite samples. Compared to the average upper continental crust, they were slightly enriched in rare earth elements, but depleted in copper, zinc, arsenic, molybdenum, antimony, thallium, lead, and bismuth. Australasian tektites have previously been observed to be depleted in thallium, lead, and bismuth, something which has been attributed to loss of volatile fractions during the impact event. 

While the Australasian tektites were depleted in molybdenum, BeLaU spherules are enriched in this element. BeLaU spherules are also notably more enriched in the heavier rare earth elements. Where the BeLaU spherules are enriched in beryllium and uranium, no such enrichment could be seen in the Australasian tektites. Based upon this, Hyung et al. conclude that these are in fact to different classes of objects, with different origins.

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Meteorite NWA 16788 sold at auction in New York, despite protests from Government of Niger.

The planet Mars has been of great interest to planetary scientists for as long as the discipline has existed. The planet has been extensively studied by telescope for centuries, and in recent decades by a series of robotic probes. These probes have taught us a great deal more about the planet than could be determined by remote sensing alone, but are only able to carry a limited amount of instrumentation, which cannot be changed, updated, or repaired once the probe has left Earth. To this end the planned Mars Sample Return program aims to bring samples from the red planet back to Earth, where they can be studied with a full range of laboratory techniques. However, this program is still in its very early stages, with no fixed target on Mars or spaceship design settled upon, and it is by no means settled that the mission will go ahead at all.

Until such time as samples are returned from Mars to Earth, the only way in which terrestrial scientists can gain direct access to material from Mars is by the examination of Martian meteorites, pieces of rock from the surface of the planet Mars which have been ejected into space, usually as a consequence of other large bodies impacting the planet. These can be confirmed as having come from Mars by a distinct mineralogy and the presence of isotope ratios detected on the planet by remote probes and not found elsewhere in the Solar System (this is not peculiar to Mars, each large body in the Solar System has its own unique isotope signature). To date, the Meteoritical Society has confirmed 402 meteorites as being of Martian origin.

The majority of Martian Meteorites have been discovered in desert environments, with 343 (85.3%) coming from the Saharan region (61 from Algeria, 1 from 'Algeria or Mali', 1 from 'Algeria or Mauritania', 4 from 'Algeria or Morocco', 1 from 'Algeria or Western Sahara', 1 from Egypt, 15 from Libya, 13 from Mali, 1 from 'Mali or Mauritania', 1 from 'Mali or Niger', 19 from Mauritania, 184 from Morocco, 1 from Niger, 1 from Nigeria, 1 from Tunisia, 15 from Western Sahara, and 23 from unknown 'Northwest African' countries).

Of the 343 known Martian Meteorites from the Sahara, 184 (53.4%) come from Morocco, with a further 15 (4.4%) from the Western Sahara, a disputed territory occupied by Morocco since 1976. This is not because Morocco is more prone to Martian Meteorite falls than other countries, but rather to a difference in the law. While most countries in the region ban the trade in, and export of, meteorites, Morocco allows a trade by licensed dealers, as long as all meteorites are registered with the Moroccan Geological Survey, and a sample of the material is deposited with them. 

This has led to the development of a successful meteorite market in Morocco (which also has a similar trade in fossils). However, there is also a suspicion that many of the meteorites traded through Morocco might originate in other countries (although, given the willingness of the international meteorite community to trade in meteorites either with no known point of origin, or known to have been smuggled out of countries where their trade is forbidden, this scarcely seems worth the effort).

The unregulated way in which meteorites (including Martian Meteorites) are traded also means that many are held in private collections, rather than by public bodies where they can be accessed by scientists (some private collectors do allow scientists to examine their material, but this is of limited value unless it can be guaranteed that all scientists in the field have, and will continue to have, access).

The largest Martian Meteorite discovered to date is NWA 16788 (North West Africa 16788), with a mass of 24.665 kg. This is not just important because bigger meteorites are more impressive; the body from which this was derived is likely to have been significantly larger, which means that the event which caused it to be ejected from Mars must also have been particularly large, giving scientists a reasonable hope of connecting this meteorite to a specific geographic location on Mars.

NWA 16788, the largest individual Martian meteorite recovered thus far. Franza et al. (2024).

NWA 16778 was (allegedly) discovered on 16 July 2023 near Kefkaf in Niger. It was confirmed as being a Martian Meteorite on the basis of samples sent to the Shanghai Astronomy Museum, with the Meteoritical Society being informed that the meteorite was being held in the collection of the Purple Mountain Observatory in China. However, in 2024 the meteorite appeared in a private collection in Arezzo, Italy. Two small samples of the meteorite were donated to the University of Firenze, and it was loaned to the Italian Space Agency during the 2024 European Researchers’ Night, on 27 September, an event intended to boost public engagement with science.

On 8 July 2025 NWA 16788 was placed on display at the auction house Sotherby's in New York, ahead of a planned auction on 16 July, at which it was predicted to fetch US$2-4 million; it was eventually sold to an anonymous buyer for US$4.3, which is likely to amount to a final cost to the buyer of about US$5.3 million once fees and taxes are taken into account.

This sale has prompted a protest by the Government of Niger, which pointed out that since 1997 Nigerien law has prohibited the unlicensed export of a range of heritage items including 'mineralogical specimens', and that the meteorite appeared to have been illegally trafficked out of the country. Sotherby's has denied any wrong-doing, noting that the legislation in question does not specifically mention meteorites.

Since the meteorite was placed on sale, a number of prominent international scientists have come forward to support the Nigerian Government's position, including palaeontologist's Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, who has raised concerns about the loss of valuable scientific specimens into the private vaults of oligarchs, and Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who believes that the term 'mineralogical specimens' clearly covers meteorites, and that the sale represents a clear breach of international law. Sereno, who has led expeditions to fossil sites in Niger for many years, and who founded the organisation Niger Heritage with the intention of building a museum in the country's capital, Niamey, further went on to point out that the removal of heritage items, cultural or natural, from a country without that country's consent is reflective of a colonial attitude which the world should have moved on from.

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The Nqweba Bolide and Meteorite Fall Event.

It is thought that more than a hundred tons of cosmic debris enters the Earth's atmosphere every day, mostly in the form of micrometeorites, dust-to-gravel sized particles. Most particles entering the upper atmosphere are derived from the tails of comets, but others are remnants of the original protoplanetary disc from which the Solar System formed, or fragments from the surface of other planets or moons, knocked free by earlier impacts. When these objects enter the atmosphere, they generally do so at very high velocities, causing them to heat rapidly as they pass through the atmosphere, and causing their surfaces to melt and the surrounding gasses to ionise. This can result in a bright streak across the sky called a meteor.

Larger bodies penetrate further into the atmosphere, burning longer and brighter, with those a few tens of centimetres in diameter producing meteors brighter in the sky than the planet Venus, which are termed 'fireballs'. Particularly large fireballs can sometimes be seen to visibly disinitegrate, and are known as bolides. The break up of such bolides is often audible from the ground, although, since they are typically tens of kilometres high, the sound typically reaches observers some time after the visible meteor, which can be confusing.

In a paper published in the South African Journal of Science on 29 May 2025, Roger Gibson of the School of Geosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, Timothy Cooper of the Comet Asteroid and Meteor Section of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa, Leonidas Vonopartis, also of the School of Geosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, Carla Dodd of the Department of Geosciences and Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at Nelson Mandela University, Peter Hers of the Garden Route Centre of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa, and Lewis Ashwal and Robyn Symons, once again of the School of Geosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, describe a bolide event which took place over the coastal belt between Mossel Bay and Gqeberha, and as far north as the southern Karoo, on 25 August 2024.

Slightly before 9.00 am on Sunday 25 August 2024, residents of the area between Mossel Bay and Gqeberha and the southern Karoo heard a noise described as like rolling thunder which persisted for more than 30 seconds, despite the sky being clear of thunderclouds. Some residents of this area also reported ground tremors.

This provoked a great deal of speculation on social media, with people hypothesizing an earthquake, landslide, vehicle collision, aircraft crash, gas or electrical infrastructure explosion, or other events. At 9.02 am, Zoë van der Merwe of Cape St Francis posted a a cluster of rapidly moving, bright, silver-white fireballs in the sky that extinguished within seconds in the general vicinity of Gqeberha.

Selected frame-by-frame analysis of Zoë van der Merwe’s video (reproduced with permission) showing the bolide post-disruption phase with multiple secondary fragments flaring individually over about two seconds before entering dark flight. Gibson et al. (2025).

There is currently a global effort to better understand atmospheric fireball events, involving organisations in many different parts of the world. In Southern Africa, the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa maintains a database of fireball events, with a dedicated webpage where members of the public can report events. They also actively seek out reports of fireballs on social media, and quickly became aware of Zoë van der Merwe's post, and other reports of the Nqweba event, leading them to share reporting guidelines on social media groups. They also received reports of a bulletin on Luister FM, a radio station based in Port Elizabeth, which stated that a meteorite had been observed falling into the sea off the Eastern Cape at around 8.55 am.

Armed with these sources of data, they set out to determine whether the observed objects were in fact derived from a Solar System body, rather than being Human-made space junk re-entering the atmosphere. This is less complex than it sounds, as space junk will typically enter the atmosphere at a low angle and with a slow velocity, most often as a series of such events as debris from the same object falls to Earth. The Nqweba object did not fit this profile, and its occurrence did not coincide with any known satellite debris re-entering the atmosphere, making unlikely that it was space junk.

Initial reports all suggested that the bolide was moving out to sea, possibly splashing down in Jeffreys Bay, to the west of Gqeberha. As more reports came in it became it had been seen over a much wider area, north as far as Petrusburg, and west as far as Ceres. A further three videos of the object emerged, although the one taken by Zoë van der Merwe appears to cover the final part of the meteor's journey.

Shortly before 9.00 am, residents of Nqweba (formerly Kirkwood), about 100 km to the north of Cape St Francis, heard what they described as a loud thunderclap, followed by a long rumbling noise. Slightly after this, 9-year-old Eli-zé du Toit observed something falling through a large Wild Fig tree in her parents garden. When investigated, this turned out to be a rock smaller than her fist, with a shiny black crust, broken in places to reveal a light grey, concrete-like interior. When touched, the exterior layer of this rock was hot, while the interior was cold. Eli-zé's mother, Jesica Botha, posted several images of this and other fragments found in the garden to social media groups, leading to her being contacted by Carla Dodd of Nelson Mandela University.

(a) Photo of main meteorite mass retrieved by Eli-zé du Toit, displaying black fusion crust (top) and the grey interior containing multiple angular rock and mineral fragments. (b) Post submitted by Jesica Botha on the Snow Report Southern Africa Facebook page. Gibson et al. (2025).

Carla Dodd was able to arrange for the meteorite fragments to be transported to Nelson Mandela University for safekeeping; meteorites, along with fossils and archaeological artefacts are protected in South Africa by the National Heritage Resources Act (1999). Here the fragments were weighed, examined and placed into desiccators for storage. This preliminary inspction suggested that the fragments belonged to a type of stoney meteorite called a HED (howardite–eucrite–diogenite) achondrite breccia. These meteorites resemble terrestrial igneous rocks, and are therefore presumed to have come from bodies large enough for magma differentiation and igneous processing to have occurred.

Initial witness reports, and the two sites where meteors were reported to have fallen to Earth, Nqweba and the sea off Cape St Francis, are about 100 km apart, suggesting that the bolide had followed a north-south trajectory, shedding fragments as it went, towards the sea. However, bolides are notoriously confusing for observers, due to the long gap between the visual fireball and the sound reaching witnesses. Careful examination of witness reports and data from remote observation stations eventually led Gibson et al. to conclude that the bolide moved southwest-to-northeast, first appearing off Mossel Bay and moving inland towards Nqweba.

The Nqweba Bolide was the 20th bolide recorded globally in 2024, and one of the smallest. It is thought to have been about 1 m in diameter when it entered the atmosphere, and to have released energy equivalent to that released by the detonation of 92 tons of TNT.

Since 1992, 493 fireball events have been recorded over South Africa, only about 3% of which have been visible during the day. The largest recorded bolide in Southern Africa was the 21 November 2009 event over northern South Africa and southern Botswana, which was probably about 200 times as large as the Nqweba Bolide, although no fragments of this were ever found.

Recovered meteorites in South Africa are strongly linked to observed meteorites, and particularly daytime events, with 21 of 51 known meteorites collected in South Africa connected to observed falls, 75% of these in the daytime. However, prior to the Nqweba Bolide,  the most recent of these fell on Lichtenburg, North West Province, in 1973, long before modern technology such as remote observation stations and mobile phones was available to help track these events.

South Africa is currently increasing its remote observation capacity, and therefore its ability to track fireballs.  It is currently home to 16 cameras running under the auspices of the NASA SETI Institute Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance network, and a further ten operated by the Global Meteor Network (4 of which have been installed in Western Cape schools to promote STEM activities). These are already improving fireball-detection rates, but do not work well in daylight. The collection of meteorite fragments is largely dependent on direct observation of the objects falling, as was the case with the Nqweba Meteorite Fall, but networks of cameras can help triangulate the area in which meteorites might have fallen, improving the chances of finding meteorites which were not directly observed.

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