Jilin City Museum

The Jilin City Museum holds what is credibly claimed to be the world's largest stone meteorite — a fragment from the Jilin meteorite shower of March 1976 that weighs 1,770 kilograms and occupies its own prominent display case in the museum's main hall. It is a genuinely impressive object: a massive, irregular lump of extraterrestrial rock that fell from the sky within living memory of people who still live in the city.

The museum's other collections cover local history, natural history, and the geology of the Jilin region. The meteorite is the highlight, and the museum is worth visiting even if you only have an hour — the meteorite alone justifies the trip. There are few museums in China where the headline exhibit is something that fell from space and the story of its landing is within the memory of eyewitnesses.

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A story
The meteorite on display — the Jilin meteorite, which fell in March 1976 in a shower that scattered fragments across 500 square kilometres — is the largest stone meteorite in the world at 1,770 kilograms. It punched through frozen ground and embedded itself nearly two metres deep. The sonic booms from its atmospheric entry were heard across three provinces, and the fireball was visible for hundreds of kilometres. The largest fragment, "Jilin No. 1," is the main exhibit.

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