A Fireball Exploded Over Shijiazhuang, and China's Meteorite Hunters Dug Into Its Wheat Fields
The fireball seen across four provinces on November 6 dropped fragments onto farms near Shijiazhuang. Hunters arrived within days, and one twenty-kilogram chunk may end up with the Chinese Academy of Sciences — after the farmer who owns the piece is paid.
On the evening of November 6 a fireball tore across northern Chinese skies — visible from Beijing through Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, trailing a distinctive green glow as it descended. It broke up at low altitude over the countryside near Shijiazhuang, and fragments landed across Pingshan County and Luquan District, punching through wheat fields; one farmhouse roof was smashed clean through by falling rock.
The hunt began almost immediately. Meteorite hunters converged on the fall zone from all over the country with spades and magnets, working the furrows where pieces had come down. On November 8, after light rain, people were still digging beside the impact craters in Luquan's fields — the provincial outlet covering the story closed its report to readers: “Luquan netizens, did you pick up a stone yet?”
The most discussed find came out of a farmhouse, where veteran hunter Yu Bin located a chunk weighing roughly twenty kilograms that he suspects is the main body of the fall. Its cross-section shows fine metal particles — part of why the original streak burned so many colors on the way down. Yu Bin arrived within a day of the explosion and plans first to negotiate purchase terms with the farmer who owns the piece, then donate part of it to the Chinese Academy of Sciences for research.
Fireballs like this one usually originate in the asteroid belt, burning as friction heats them on entry into the atmosphere; experts say the green tint likely comes from iron and nickel. The rocks themselves are ancient: most meteorites formed about 4.5 billion years ago, and their radioactive elements have long since decayed — so picking one up off a plowed field carries no radiation risk at all.
Ownership is less settled than physics. A lawyer quoted in the Chinese coverage cautions that meteorites judged to have high scientific value tend, in practice, to be treated as state property — a caveat now hanging over every price negotiated in a Hebei farmhouse, and every piece carried home out of a wheat furrow.