Up close and personal with the Vaca Muerta

This zoomable image shows the Vaca Muerta (Dead Cow) meteorite preserved at the ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany, to minute detail. This rare stony-iron (mesosiderite) meteorite originates from the Chilean region of the dry riverbed Quebrada Vaca Muerta in Chile, and the combined mass of all the collected material belonging to the meteor that fell in the Atacama Desert about 3500 years ago exceeds 3400 kg, but only rare specimens had not been disturbed before collection in the late 1980s.