Campo del Cielo Meteorite Field

Provincial Park Protecting A Meteorite Strewn Field Formed About 4,000 Years Ago; The El Chaco Meteorite Is Among The Heaviest Known On Earth · Gancedo, Chaco

Campo del Cielo, the Field of Heaven, is a stretch of Chaco farmland where an iron meteorite broke up in the atmosphere roughly four thousand years ago and scattered fragments and small craters across a long strip of the plain. The indigenous peoples of the region knew of the iron, and Spanish expeditions came looking for it in the sixteenth century. Tonnes of meteorite have since been recovered, and the largest pieces are among the heaviest known anywhere: El Chaco, found in 1969, weighs tens of tonnes and is displayed where it lay, and Gancedo, another giant, is nearby. In 1990 an attempt to carry El Chaco off for sale abroad was stopped, and the field is now protected as a provincial park with a small visitor centre. For most people it is a curiosity rather than a destination, reached on rural roads far from any tourist route, and the craters themselves are shallow and grassy. But standing next to a lump of iron from space the size of a small car is a strange and memorable thing, and there is nowhere else in the country like it.

Parque Provincial Piguen N'Onaxa, Gancedo, Chaco, Gancedo, Chaco, H3734, Argentina

The park and its visitor centre open in daytime; confirm hours. The site is remote and reached by rural roads that can be muddy after rain.

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