General News
2 September, 2025
Meteorite search hones in near Dunolly
The meteor that was seen throughout Central Victoria on the night of Sunday, August 10, still hasn’t been located, with experts still scaling its landing point north of Maryborough.
After the fireball was witnessed across the state, within a few days, experts strategically pinpointed a fall zone.
Monash University planetary geologist and lead meteorite geochemist for the Desert Fireball Network (DFN) Rachel Kirby said there are a series of cameras around the nation, including some locally, that lead the team to Dunolly.
“DFN has a series of cameras positioned around Australia to monitor for large, bright meteors called fireballs,” she said.
“By capturing the paths of the fireballs in the sky, the DFN can triangulate the trajectory of the fireball and the likely landing site of the meteorite on the ground.
“We have narrowed down the fall zone to approximately three kilometres long and 500 metres wide.”
Since the meteor sighting, locals may have noticed a whole team from Monash University scanning paddocks between Havelock and Dunolly.
This is a strategic process by the team to locate the meteorite.
“To cover all the ground in the search area, we typically form a line with each person a few metres apart, and walk in that straight line. We try to do this over all the search ground that we have access to,” Dr Kirby said.
But this is not the first time in recent years meteorites have been spotted in the Central Goldfields.
“Other meteorites have been found in the area before, including the large 17 kilogram Maryborough meteorite which was found in 2015. The Maryborough meteorite likely fell to earth 100 to 1000 years ago,” Dr Kirby said.
Prior to the discovery, The Age reported a meteor sighting over Maryborough in June 1951, flying in a “north-easterly direction.”
While this makes the Central Goldfields appear as a meteor hotspot, Dr Kirby said this is simply because these phenomenons are more frequent than people realise.
“Meteorites are constantly falling across the Earth. However, most of these are very small micro-meteorites and difficult to see without a microscope,” she said.
“This recent meteorite is one of the largest detected using the DFN, and the only meteorite of significant size that we have detected on our cameras that fell in the Central Goldfields in the past decade.”
Determining what the meteorite will look like, Dr Kirby said it will stand out from the rocks and stones that are naturally found in the Central Goldfields.
“A freshly fallen meteorite like the one we are searching for will typically have a rounded and smoothed over surface, which is usually either matte black or sometimes shiny black,” she said.
“This outer layer of black fusion crust is quite thin, and sometimes it can be chipped off in places revealing a lighter coloured interior.”
Never touched before falling to Earth, the minerals within the meteorite may have been crystalised over billions of years. As a result, it may be extremely heavy.
If the meteorite is found, it will undergo extensive testing to determine it’s chemical composition and properties, a process that can help scientists determine how the solar system was formed.
“Most meteorites are over 4.5 billion years old, which is older than the Earth,” Dr Kirby said.
But until then, she is encouraging locals who find unusual large stones they have never seen before, to consider how they really got there.
“If anyone thinks they have located a meteorite, please take a photo of where you found it and record the location. Place it into a clean, dry zip-lock bag and contact Dr Rachel Kirby at rachel.kirby@monash.edu,” she said.