Hoba Meteorite

The Hoba meteorite is a slab of iron and nickel weighing around sixty tonnes, found by a farmer ploughing in 1920 and never moved since, which makes it both the largest meteorite and the largest naturally occurring piece of iron known on the surface of the Earth. It fell less than eighty thousand years ago and left no crater, which suggests it came in at a shallow angle. It sits in a stone amphitheatre built around it after souvenir hunters began cutting pieces off.

What you actually see

• The meteorite - around sixty tonnes of iron and nickel, the largest known.
• The surface - cut marks and corrosion from a century of visitors and weathering.
• The amphitheatre - stone seating built around it for protection.
• The absence of a crater - the ground around it undisturbed, unusual for its size.

When to go

March to October is the cooler window. The site keeps daytime hours. Midday sun makes the stone amphitheatre hot with no shade.

Honest expectations

It is a twenty-minute stop and there is nothing else at the site. The interpretation is minimal. Vandalism and souvenir cutting have taken visible pieces off it.

Nearby

Grootfontein is east, and Lake Otjikoto is west towards Tsumeb.