Neuschwanstein Castle

Coordinates: 47°33′27″N 10°45′00″E / 47.55750°N 10.75000°E / 47.55750; 10.75000

Neuschwanstein Castle (German: Schloss Neuschwanstein, pronounced [nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪn], English: "New Swanstone Castle") is a nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner. Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian public funds.

The palace was intended as a personal refuge for the reclusive king, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886. Since then more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer. The palace has appeared prominently in several movies and was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and later, similar structures.

Neuschwanstein (meteorite)

Neuschwanstein was an enstatite chondrite (type EL6) meteorite that fell to Earth on 6 April 2002 at 22:20:18 GMT near Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, at the Germany–Austria border.

The original meteorite burst into several fragments at a height of about 22 kilometers (14 miles) above the ground. The fragments descended on an area of several square kilometers. Three fragments were recovered with a total mass of about 6 kilograms (13 lb). Neuschwanstein was the first meteorite in Germany, and the fourth in the world, that was monitored by one of the world's fireball networks, namely by the European Fireball Network. Photographing the meteor simultaneously from several locations allowed accurate reconstruction of its trajectory.

Meteorite fall

The 90.6-kilometer-long (56.3 mi) trace of the Neuschwanstein meteor within the Earth's atmosphere began at a height of about 85 km (53 mi), about 10 km (6 mi) east-northeast of Innsbruck, with an entry angle of about 49° to the horizontal, and ended 16.04 km (10.0 mi) above the Earth's surface. Shortly before that it split into fragments at the "endpoint" at a height of about 22 km (14 mi).