Natural History Museum Vienna

The Meteorite Collection

The Natural History Museum of Vienna owns one of the largest meteorite collections in the world. With currently (December 2018) over 10,300 catalogued objects (which represent about 2,550 different meteorites), it lies in third place, behind the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. (USA), and the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo (Japan) which has one of the largest collection of meteorites from Antarctica.

The Hall 5 of the Natural History Museum contains the largest meteorite display in the world. Currently, after a thorough renovation and modernization of the hall (in 2012), there are about 1,100 meteorites on display (including 650 different meteorites, consisting of 300 falls and 350 finds).

With its 300 kg Knyahinya is one of the largest in the world. The exhibition explains meteorite showers, impact craters and answers the questions: "Where do meteorites come from?", "Where and how do I find meteorites?" or "What are meteorites made of?".

You can also watch meteors live via the meteor radar station. In an "Impact Simulator", visitors can control the extent of a possible destruction of the city of Vienna or Central Europe by the impact of asteroids with different sizes and velocities. A major highlight is a wide-screen animation on the "Origin of the solar system", specially produced for the NHM Vienna.

Furthermore, the stations include a unique display of all Austrian meteorites (including the Ischgl meteorite), fossil meteorites, as well as from Mars and the Moon.
Finally visitors can enjoy the fulldome planetarium and view planets through astronaut's eyes at the "Vision Globe".

Not only the largest display in Europe of meteorites from Mars (including a 909 g stone of the Tissint meteorite) and from the Moon (including a 1,838 g stone of the Galb Inal meteorite) is to be seen, but also with four specimens of the Apollo missions on display, it is the only place outside of the USA where so many of such unique manned returned samples from the Moon can be seen!

Contact

Andrea Platzer
Curator of the meteorite collection
E-mail: Andrea.Patzer@NHM.AT
Tel.: +43 (1) 52177-393