The Twannberg meteorite is a rare type of iron meteorite found North of the Lake of Biel, in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. The first meteorite - a mass of 15 kg - was found there in the year 1984. Other pieces were found later in the years 2000, 2005, and 2007, and hundreds more meteorite fragments were recovered more recently during a dedicated search campaign, totaling a mass of about 140 kg (1740 fragments). This was a great “citizen science”-like project led by Prof. Beda A. Hofmann (Natural History Museum Bern & University of Bern, Switzerland), together with a number of meteorite amateurs, such as Mr. Marc Jost and Mr. Andreas Koppelt, to only cite a few. Detailed information can be found here: https://www.twannbergmeteorit.ch/index_de.html
 
The meteorite fall occurred a long time, between 155,000 and 195,000 years, ago. The event, an explosion of an estimated 4-m-diameter (at minimum!) meteoroid, was likely as spectacular as when the 20-m-diameter Chelyabinsk meteoroid exploded over Russia on the 15th of February 2013.
“The Twannberg meteorite is a very rare type of iron meteorite, belonging to the chemical group IIG. Of the currently 1,255 recognized iron meteorites, only five other meteorites like the Twannberg meteorites belong to this specific group, an absolute rarity!” said Dr. Ludovic Ferrière, chief curator of the meteorite collection at the NHM Vienna.
“In total, 11 meteorites are known from Switzerland and the Twannberg meteorite is now the third meteorite from Switzerland to enter the NHM's collection,” adds Ferrière.
Dr. Ferrière describes the new addition to the permanent collection as follows: “This piece of the Twannberg meteorite, a 370.1 g mass (dimensions: 8.5 x 5.0 x 4.0 cm) was kept exactly as it was when it was found, with its natural “rusted” patina. Until now we only had one small specimen of this meteorite in the collection, a recent donation (from the year 2019) from Thomas Stalder, but it was not spectacular enough to be added to the display. You cannot imagine how happy I am today as I was looking for such a specimen for many years; I was even searching in the field there for two days with a metal detector, together with a friend, back in September 2016. Unfortunately, we did not find any meteorite, but at least we have tried!”
 
The donated Twannberg meteorite specimen was found a few years ago, on April 3rd, 2016, by Mrs. Madeleine Sturny. On that day she was searching in the forest on Mont Sujet, one of the "hot spots" for Twannberg meteorites, together with Mr. Marc Jost, Mr. Andreas Koppelt, and Mr. Thomas Stalder. On the same day Mrs. Sturny found two meteorites, this one was the second one she found: indeed a very lucky day!
 
The Twannberg meteorite is a very nice addition to the Natural History Museum Vienna, which hosts the world’s largest and oldest meteorite collection on display (with more than 1,100 meteorites visible to the public), said the Chief Financial Officer of the NHM, Mag. Roboch, thanking the President of the Swiss Council of States, Hans Stöckli, for the valuable meteorite.
The entire team of the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the OSCE, the United Nations and other International Organizations in Vienna, and in particular Ambassador Wolfgang Amadeus Brülhart, should be acknowledged for making this donation possible.
 
The new meteorite specimen of the Twannberg meteorite can be viewed from October 2nd, 2020 in the Meteorite Hall (Hall 5) [in the central showcase 109] of the NHM Vienna.