Meteoroid

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A slice of a pallasite meteorite fragment of what was once a meteoroid before it collided with
Earth, discovered in Argentina; on display at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa,
Canada.

A meteoroid is a small particle from a comet or asteroid.[1][2] A meteoroid is significantly

smaller than an asteroid, ranging from small grains to 1 meter wide.[3][4][5][6]

The visible streak of light from space debris is the result of heat as it enters a planet's
atmosphere, and the trail of glowing particles that it sheds in its wake is called a meteor, or
colloquially a "shooting star" or "falling star". A series of many meteors appearing seconds or
minutes apart, and appearing to originate from the same fixed point in the sky, are called a
meteor shower. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteros, meaning "suspended
in the air". Objects larger than several meters can explode in the air and create damage. If a
meteoroid, comet or asteroid withstands ablation from its atmospheric entry and impacts with
the ground, then it is called a meteorite.

Around 15,000 tonnes of meteoroids, micrometeoroids and different forms of space dust
enter Earth's atmosphere each year.[7]

Contents
1 Meteoroids
o 1.1 Meteoroid composition
o 1.2 Meteoroids in the Solar System
o 1.3 Meteoroid collisions with Earth and its atmosphere
 2 Meteor
o 2.1 Fireball
o 2.2 Atmospheric remains of meteor passage
2.2.1 Sounds of meteors
o 2.3 Seasonal variation in meteor sightings
o 2.4 History
2.4.1 Notable meteors
2.4.1.1 1992Peekskill, New York
2.4.1.2 2009Bone, Indonesia
2.4.1.3 2009Southwestern US
2.4.1.4 2013Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia
o 2.5 Gallery of meteors
3 Meteorite and meteoroid impacts
o 3.1 Frequency of large meteoroid collisions with Earth
o 3.2 Meteorite and meteoroid impact craters
o 3.3 Gallery of meteorites
4 See also
o 4.1 Relating to meteoroids
o 4.2 Relating to meteors
o 4.3 Relating to meteorites
5 References
6 External links

Meteoroids
See also: Micrometeoroid

Animated illustration of different phases as a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere to

become visible as a meteor and land as a meteorite
2008 TC3 meteorite fragments found on Feb. 28, 2009 in the Nubian Desert, Sudan.

In 1961, the International Astronomical Union defined a meteoroid as "a solid object moving
in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably
larger than an atom".[8][9] In 1995, Beech and Steel, writing in Quarterly Journal of the Royal
Astronomical Society, proposed a new definition where a meteoroid would be between 100
m and 10 meters across.[10] Following the discovery of asteroids below 10 m in size, Rubin
and Grossman refined the Beech and Steel definition of meteoroid to objects between 10 m
and 1 m in diameter.[4] The smallest asteroid ever discovered (based on absolute magnitude)
is 2008 TS26 with an absolute magnitude of 33.2,[11] and an estimated size of 1-meter.[12]
Objects smaller than meteoroids are classified as micrometeoroids and cosmic dust. The
Minor Planet Center does not use the term "meteoroid".

Meteoroid composition

The composition of meteoroids can be inferred as they pass through the Earth's atmosphere
from their trajectories and the light spectra of the resulting meteor. Their effects on radio
signals also give information, especially useful for daytime meteors which are otherwise very
difficult to observe. From these trajectory measurements, meteoroids have been found to have
many different orbits, some clustering in streams (see Meteor showers) often associated with
a parent comet, others apparently sporadic. Debris from meteoroid streams may eventually be
scattered into other orbits. The light spectra, combined with trajectory and light curve
measurements, have yielded various compositions and densities, ranging from fragile
snowball-like objects with density about a quarter that of ice,[13] to nickel-iron rich dense
rocks. The study of meteorites also gives insights into the composition of non-ephemeral
meteoroids.

Meteoroids in the Solar System

Meteoroids travel around the Sun in a variety of orbits and at various velocities. The fastest
ones move at about 42 kilometers per second through space in the vicinity of Earth's
orbit.[citation needed] The Earth travels at about 29.6 kilometers per second. Thus, when
meteoroids meet Earth's atmosphere head-on (which only occurs when meteors are in a
retrograde orbit such as the Eta Aquarids, which are associated with the retrograde Halley's
Comet), the combined speed may reach about 71 kilometers per second. Meteoroids moving
through Earth's orbital space average about 20 km/s.[14]

On 2013 January 17 at 05:21 PST a 1 meter-sized comet from the Oort cloud entered Earth
atmosphere.[15] The object had a retrograde orbit with perihelion at 0.98 0.03 AU. It
approached from the direction of the constellation Virgo, and collided head-on with Earth
atmosphere at 72 6 km/s[15] vapourising more than 100km above ground over a period of
several seconds.

Meteoroid collisions with Earth and its atmosphere

When meteoroids intersect with the Earth's atmosphere at night, they are likely to become
visible as meteors. If meteoroids survive the entry through the atmosphere and reach the
Earth's surface, they are called meteorites. Meteorites are transformed in structure and
chemistry by the heat of entry and force of impact. A noted meteoroid, 2008 TC3, was
observed in space on a collision course with Earth on 6 October 2008 and entered the Earth's
atmosphere the next day, striking a remote area of northern Sudan. It was the first time that a
meteoroid had been observed in space and tracked prior to impacting Earth.

Meteor

A Leonid meteor, seen in the 2009 Leonid Meteor Shower.

"Meteor" and "Meteors" redirect here. For other uses, see Meteor (disambiguation).

Photo of a part of the sky during a meteor shower over an extended exposure time. The
meteors have actually occurred several seconds to several minutes apart.
See also: List of meteor air bursts

A meteor or "shooting star" is the visible streak of light from a meteoroid or micrometeoroid,
heated and glowing from entering the Earth's atmosphere, as it sheds glowing material in its
wake. Meteors typically occur in the mesosphere at altitudes between 76 km to 100 km (46
62 miles).[16] Millions of meteors occur in the Earth's atmosphere daily. Most meteoroids that
cause meteors are about the size of a pebble. Meteors may occur in showers, which arise
when the Earth passes through a stream of debris left by a comet, or as "random" or
"sporadic" meteors, not associated with a specific stream of space debris. A number of
specific meteors have been observed, largely by members of the public and largely by
accident, but with enough detail that orbits of the meteoroids producing the meteors have
been calculated. All of the orbits passed through the asteroid belt.[17] The atmospheric
velocities of meteors result from the movement of Earth around the Sun at about 30 km/s (18
miles/second),[18] the orbital speeds of meteoroids, and the gravity well of Earth.

Meteors become visible between about 75 to 120 km (3470 miles) above the Earth. They
usually disintegrate at altitudes of 50 to 95 km (3151 miles).[19] Meteors have roughly a fifty
percent chance of a daylight (or near daylight) collision with the Earth. Most meteors are,
however, observed at night, when darkness allows fainter objects to be recognized. For
bodies with a size scale larger than (10 cm to several meters) meteor visibility is due to the
atmospheric ram pressure (not friction) that heats the meteoroid so that it glows and creates a
shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles. The gases include vaporized meteoroid
material and atmospheric gases that heat up when the meteoroid passes through the
atmosphere. Most meteors glow for about a second. A relatively small percentage of
meteoroids hit the Earth's atmosphere and then pass out again: these are termed Earth-grazing
fireballs (for example The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball). The visible light produced by a
meteor may take on various hues, depending on the chemical composition of the meteoroid,
and the speed of its movement through the atmosphere. As layers of the meteoroid abrade and
ionize, the color of the light emitted may change according to the layering of minerals.
Possible colors (and elements producing them) include:

Orange/yellow (sodium)
Yellow (iron)
Blue/green (copper)
Purple (potassium)
Red (silicate)

Fireball

See also: List of meteor air bursts

Reported Fireballs[20]
Year #
2012 2126
2011 1631
2010 951
2009 694
2008 726

A 'fireball' is a brighter-than-usual meteor. The International Astronomical Union defines a

fireball as "a meteor brighter than any of the planets" (magnitude 4 or greater).[21] The
International Meteor Organization (an amateur organization that studies meteors) has a more
rigid definition. It defines a fireball as a meteor that would have a magnitude of 3 or brighter
if seen at zenith. This definition corrects for the greater distance between an observer and a
meteor near the horizon. For example, a meteor of magnitude 1 at 5 degrees above the
horizon would be classified as a fireball because if the observer had been directly below the
meteor it would have appeared as magnitude 6.[22] For 2012 there were 2126 fireballs
recorded at the American Meteor Society.[23] There are probably more than 500,000 fireballs
a year,[24] but most will go unnoticed because most will occur over the ocean and half will
occur during the daytime. Fireballs reaching magnitude 14 or brighter are called bolides.[25]
The IAU has no official definition of "bolide", and generally considers the term synonymous
with "fireball". Astronomers often use "bolide" to identify an exceptionally bright fireball,
particularly one that explodes (sometimes called a detonating fireball). It may also be used to
mean a fireball which creates audible sounds. In the late twentieth century, bolide has also
come to mean any object that hits the Earth and explodes, with no regard to its composition
(asteroid or comet).[26] The word bolide comes from the Greek (bolis) [27] which can
mean a missile or to flash. If the magnitude of a bolide reaches 17 or brighter it is known as
a superbolide.[25][28]

Atmospheric remains of meteor passage

Entry of meteoroids into the Earth's atmosphere produces three main effects: ionization of
atmospheric molecules, dust that the meteoroid sheds, and the sound of passage.

During the entry of a meteoroid or asteroid into the upper atmosphere, an ionization trail is
created, where the molecules in the upper atmosphere are ionized by the passage of the
meteor. Such ionization trails can last up to 45 minutes at a time. Small, sand-grain sized
meteoroids are entering the atmosphere constantly, essentially every few seconds in any
given region of the atmosphere, and thus ionization trails can be found in the upper
atmosphere more or less continuously. When radio waves are bounced off these trails, it is
called meteor burst communications. Meteor radars can measure atmospheric density and
winds by measuring the decay rate and Doppler shift of a meteor trail. Most meteoroids burn
up when they enter the atmosphere. The left-over debris is called meteoric dust or just
meteor dust. Meteor dust particles can persist in the atmosphere for up to several months.
These particles might affect climate, both by scattering electromagnetic radiation and by
catalyzing chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere.[29] Larger meteors can enter dark
flight after deceleration where the meteorite (or fragments) fall at terminal velocity.[30] Dark
flight starts when the meteorite(s) decelerate to about 24 km/s (4,5008,900 mph).[31] Larger
fragments will fall further down the strewn field.

Sounds of meteors

Sound generated by a meteor in the upper atmosphere, such as a sonic boom, is typically
delayed for many seconds after the meteor disappears. Occasionally, as with the Leonid
meteor shower of 2001,"crackling", "swishing", or "hissing" sounds have been reported,[32]
occurring at the same instant as a meteor flare. Similar sounds have also been reported during
intense displays of Earth's auroras.[33][34][35][36]

Sound recordings made under controlled conditions in Mongolia in 1998 support the
contention that the sounds are real.[37]

How these sounds could be generated, assuming they are in fact real, remains something of a
mystery. It has been hypothesized by some scientists at NASA that the turbulent ionized
wake of a meteor interacts with the magnetic field of the Earth, generating pulses of radio
waves. As the trail dissipates, megawatts of electromagnetic energy could be released, with a
peak in the power spectrum at audio frequencies. Physical vibrations induced by the
electromagnetic impulses would then be heard if they are powerful enough to make grasses,
plants, eyeglass frames, and other conductive materials vibrate.[38][39][40][41] This proposed
mechanism, although proven to be plausible by laboratory work, remains unsupported by
corresponding measurements in the field.

Seasonal variation in meteor sightings

See also: List of meteor showers

A meteor shower is the result of an interaction between a planet, such as Earth, and streams
of debris from a comet or other source. The passage of the Earth through cosmic debris from
comets and other sources is a recurring event in many cases. Comets can produce debris by
water vapor drag, as demonstrated by Fred Whipple in 1951,[42] and by breakup. Each time a
comet swings by the Sun in its orbit, some of its ice vaporizes and a certain amount of
meteoroids will be shed. The meteoroids spread out along the entire orbit of the comet to
form a meteoroid stream, also known as a "dust trail" (as opposed to a comet's "dust tail"
caused by the very small particles that are quickly blown away by solar radiation pressure).

The frequency of fireball sightings increases by about 10-30% during the weeks of vernal
equinox.[43] Even meteorite falls are more common during the northern hemisphere's spring
season. Although this phenomenon has been known for quite some time, the reason behind
the anomaly is not fully understood by scientists. Some researchers attribute this to an
intrinsic variation in the meteoroid population along Earth's orbit, with a peak in big fireball-
producing debris around spring and early summer. Research is in progress for mapping the
orbits of the meteors in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon.[44]

History

Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an
astronomical phenomenon until early in the 19th century. Prior to that, they were seen in the
West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange
stories of rocks falling from the sky. Thomas Jefferson wrote "I would more easily believe
that (a) Yankee professor would lie than that stones would fall from heaven."[45] He was
referring to Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman's investigation of an 1807 meteorite
that fell in Weston, Connecticut.[45] Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but
meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of
November 1833.[46] People all across the eastern United States saw thousands of meteors,
radiating from a single point in the sky. Astute observers noticed that the radiant, as the point
is now called, moved with the stars, staying in the constellation Leo.[47]

The astronomer Denison Olmsted made an extensive study of this storm, and concluded it
had a cosmic origin. After reviewing historical records, Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers
predicted the storm's return in 1867, which drew the attention of other astronomers to the
phenomenon. Hubert A. Newton's more thorough historical work led to a refined prediction
of 1866, which proved to be correct.[46] With Giovanni Schiaparelli's success in connecting
the Leonids (as they are now called) with comet Tempel-Tuttle, the cosmic origin of meteors
was now firmly established. Still, they remain an atmospheric phenomenon, and retain their
name "meteor" from the Greek word for "atmospheric".[48]

Notable meteors

See also: Near-Earth object#Historic impacts

1992Peekskill, New York

Perhaps the best-known meteor/meteorite fall is the Peekskill Meteorite, filmed on October 9,
1992 by at least 16 independent videographers.[49] Eyewitness accounts indicate the fireball
entry of the Peekskill meteorite started over West Virginia at 23:48 UT (1 min). The
fireball, which traveled in a northeasterly direction, had a pronounced greenish colour, and
attained an estimated peak visual magnitude of 13. During a luminous flight time that
exceeded 40 seconds the fireball covered a ground path of some 700 to 800 km.[50] One
meteorite recovered at Peekskill, New York, for which the event and object gained their
name, had a mass of 12.4 kg (27 lb) and was subsequently identified as an H6 monomict
breccia meteorite.[51] The video record suggests that the Peekskill meteorite had several
companions over a wide area. The companions are unlikely to be recovered in the hilly,
wooded terrain in the vicinity of Peekskill.

2009Bone, Indonesia

A large fireball was observed in the skies near Bone, Indonesia on October 8, 2009. This was
thought to be caused by an asteroid approximately 10 meters in diameter. The fireball
contained an estimated energy of 50 kilotons of TNT, or about twice the Nagasaki atomic
bomb. No injuries were reported.[52]

2009Southwestern US

A large bolide was reported on 18 November 2009 over southeastern California, northern
Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado. At 12:07 a.m., a security camera at the high
altitude W. L. Eccles Observatory (9600 ft above sea level) recorded a movie of the passage
of the object to the north.[53][54] Of particular note in this video is the spherical "ghost" image
slightly trailing the main object (this is likely a lens reflection of the intense fireball), and the
bright fireball explosion associated with the breakup of a substantial fraction of the object.
An object trail can be seen to continue northward after the bright fireball event. The shock
from the final breakup triggered seven seismological stations in northern Utah; a timing fit to
the seismic data yielded a terminal location of the object at 40.286 N, -113.191 W, altitude
27 km.[55] This is above the Dugway Proving Grounds, a closed Army testing base.

2013Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia

Main article: Chelyabinsk meteor

Over 1,500 people were injured mostly by glass from shattered windows caused by a
meteoroid explosion during meteor event in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia on 15 February
2013, when a meteoroid exploded approx 25 to 30 km above the environs of Chelyabinsk,
Russia. An increasingly bright streak was observed during morning daylight with a large
contrail lingering behind. At no less than 1 minute and up to at least 3 minutes after the object
peaked in intensity (depending on distance from trail), a large concussive blast was heard that
shattered windows and set-off car alarms, which was followed by a number of smaller
explosions.[56] Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) estimated the meteoroid
to have an initial mass of 11,000 tonnes, and to measure approximately 17 to 20 metres
across, as it entered the earth's atmosphere.[57][58]

Gallery of meteors
Meteorite
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about debris from space that survives impact with the ground. For other uses of
"Meteor" and "Meteors", see Meteor (disambiguation). For popular applications, see Falling
star. For the fictional superhero in the Marvel Comics universe, see Meteorite (comics).

Willamette Meteorite discovered in the US state of Oregon

A meteorite is a meteoroid (a solid piece of debris from such sources as asteroids or comets)
originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. A meteorite's size can
range from small to extremely large. When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, frictional,
pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause the body to heat up and
emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting/falling star. The term
bolide refers to either an extraterrestrial body that collides with the Earth, or to an
exceptionally bright, fireball-like meteor regardless of whether it ultimately impacts the
surface.

More generally, a meteorite on the surface of any celestial body is a natural object that has
come from elsewhere in space. Meteorites have been found on the Moon[1][2] and Mars.[3]
Meteorites that are recovered after being observed as they transited the atmosphere or
impacted the Earth are called falls. All other meteorites are known as finds. As of February
2010, there are approximately 1,086 witnessed falls having specimens in the world's
collections. In contrast, there are more than 38,660 well-documented meteorite finds.[4]
Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories: stony meteorites are
rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals; iron meteorites are largely composed of metallic
iron-nickel; and, stony-iron meteorites contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky
material. Modern classification schemes divide meteorites into groups according to their
structure, chemical and isotopic composition and mineralogy. Meteorites smaller than 2mm
are classified as micrometeorites.

Contents
1 Naming
2 Fall phenomena
3 Meteorite types
4 Meteorite recovery
o 4.1 Falls
o 4.2 Finds
4.2.1 The Great Plains of the US
4.2.2 Antarctica
4.2.3 Australia
4.2.4 The Sahara and rising commercialization
4.2.5 Arabian Peninsula
4.2.6 The American Southwest
5 Meteorites in history
6 Meteorite weathering
7 Notable meteorites
8 Notable large impact craters
9 Notable disintegrating meteoroids
10 See also
11 References
12 External links

Naming
Meteorites are always named for the places they were found,[5] usually a nearby town or
geographic feature. In cases where many meteorites were found in one place, the name may
be followed by a number or letter (e.g., Allan Hills 84001 or Dimmitt (b)). Some meteorites
have informal nicknames: the Sylacauga meteorite is sometimes called the "Hodges
meteorite" after Ann Hodges, the woman who was struck by it; the Canyon Diablo meteorite,
which formed Meteor Crater has dozens of these aliases. However, the single, official name
designated by the Meteoritical Society is used by scientists, catalogers, and most collectors.

Fall phenomena
See also: atmospheric entry and Meteorite fall
Meteorite which fell in Wisconsin in 1868 (Full image).

Most meteoroids disintegrate when entering Earth's atmosphere. Only 5 or 6 a year are
typically recovered and made known to scientists. Few meteorites are large enough to create
large impact craters. Instead, they typically arrive at the surface at their terminal velocity and,
at most, create a small pit. Even so, falling meteorites have reportedly caused damage to
property, and injuries to livestock and people.

Campo del Cielo iron meteorite with natural hole

Large meteoroids may strike the ground with a significant fraction of their cosmic velocity,
leaving behind a hypervelocity impact crater. The kind of crater will depend on the size,
composition, degree of fragmentation, and incoming angle of the impactor. The force of such
collisions has the potential to cause widespread destruction.[6][7] The most frequent
hypervelocity cratering events on the Earth are caused by iron meteoroids, which are most
easily able to transit the atmosphere intact. Examples of craters caused by iron meteoroids
include Barringer Meteor Crater, Odessa Meteor Crater, Wabar craters, and Wolfe Creek
crater; iron meteorites are found in association with all of these craters. In contrast, even
relatively large stony or icy bodies like small comets or asteroids, up to millions of tons, are
disrupted in the atmosphere, and do not make impact craters.[8] Although such disruption
events are uncommon, they can cause a considerable concussion to occur; the famed
Tunguska event probably resulted from such an incident. Very large stony objects, hundreds
of meters in diameter or more, weighing tens of millions of tons or more, can reach the
surface and cause large craters, but are very rare. Such events are generally so energetic that
the impactor is completely destroyed, leaving no meteorites. (The very first example of a
stony meteorite found in association with a large impact crater, the Morokweng crater in
South Africa, was reported in May 2006.[9])

Several phenomena are well documented during witnessed meteorite falls too small to
produce hypervelocity craters.[10] The fireball that occurs as the meteoroid passes through the
atmosphere can appear to be very bright, rivaling the sun in intensity, although most are far
dimmer and may not even be noticed during daytime. Various colors have been reported,
including yellow, green, and red. Flashes and bursts of light can occur as the object breaks
up. Explosions, detonations, and rumblings are often heard during meteorite falls, which can
be caused by sonic booms as well as shock waves resulting from major fragmentation events.
These sounds can be heard over wide areas, up to many thousands of square km. Whistling
and hissing sounds are also sometimes heard, but are poorly understood. Following passage
of the fireball, it is not unusual for a dust trail to linger in the atmosphere for some time.

As meteoroids are heated during atmospheric entry, their surfaces melt and experience
ablation. They can be sculpted into various shapes during this process, sometimes resulting in
deep "thumb-print" like indentations on their surfaces called regmaglypts. If the meteoroid
maintains a fixed orientation for some time, without tumbling, it may develop a conical "nose
cone" or "heat shield" shape. As it decelerates, eventually the molten surface layer solidifies
into a thin fusion crust, which on most meteorites is black (on some achondrites, the fusion
crust may be very light colored). On stony meteorites, the heat-affected zone is at most a few
mm deep; in iron meteorites, which are more thermally conductive, the structure of the metal
may be affected by heat up to 1 centimetre (0.39 in) below the surface. Meteorites are
sometimes reported to be warm to the touch when they land, but they are never hot. Reports,
however, vary greatly, with some meteorites being reported as "burning hot to the touch"
upon landing,[11][12] and others forming a frost upon their surface.[13]

Meteoroids that experience disruption in the atmosphere may fall as meteorite showers,
which can range from only a few up to thousands of separate individuals. The area over
which a meteorite shower falls is known as its strewn field. Strewn fields are commonly
elliptical in shape, with the major axis parallel to the direction of flight. In most cases, the
largest meteorites in a shower are found farthest down-range in the strewn field.

Meteorite types
Main article: Meteorite classification

Murnpeowie meteorite, a thumbprinted iron meteorite.

Marlia Meteorite, a chondrite H4, which fell in Marlia, So Paulo state, Brazil, on October
5, 1971, at 17:00

Most meteorites are stony meteorites, classed as chondrites and achondrites. Only about 6%
of meteorites are iron meteorites or a blend of rock and metal, the stony-iron meteorites.
Modern classification of meteorites is complex, the review paper of Krot et al. (2007)[14]
summarizes modern meteorite taxonomy.

About 86% of the meteorites that fall on Earth are chondrites,[4][15][16] which are named for
the small, round particles they contain. These particles, or chondrules, are composed mostly
of silicate minerals that appear to have been melted while they were free-floating objects in
space. Certain types of chondrites also contain small amounts of organic matter, including
amino acids, and presolar grains. Chondrites are typically about 4.55 billion years old and are
thought to represent material from the asteroid belt that never formed into large bodies. Like
comets, chondritic asteroids are some of the oldest and most primitive materials in the solar
system. Chondrites are often considered to be "the building blocks of the planets".

About 8% of the meteorites that fall on Earth are achondrites (meaning they do not contain
chondrules), some of which are similar to terrestrial mafic igneous rocks. Most achondrites
are also ancient rocks, and are thought to represent crustal material of asteroids. One large
family of achondrites (the HED meteorites) may have originated on the asteroid 4 Vesta. It is
assumed that about 5% of all meteorites found on earth comes from Vesta.[17] Others derive
from different asteroids. Two small groups of achondrites are special, as they are younger and
do not appear to come from the asteroid belt. One of these groups comes from the Moon, and
includes rocks similar to those brought back to Earth by Apollo and Luna programs. The
other group is almost certainly from Mars and are the only materials from other planets ever
recovered by humans.

About 5% of meteorites that fall are iron meteorites with intergrowths of iron-nickel alloys,
such as kamacite and taenite. Most iron meteorites are thought to come from the cores of
asteroids that were once molten. As on Earth, the denser metal separated from silicate
material and sank toward the center of the asteroid, forming a core. After the asteroid
solidified, it broke up in a collision with another asteroid. Due to the low abundance of iron
meteorites in collection areas such as Antarctica, where most of the meteoric material that has
fallen can be recovered, it is possible that the percentage of iron-meteorite falls is lower than
5%.

An Esquel meteorite of the pallasite type

Stony-iron meteorites constitute the remaining 1%. They are a mixture of iron-nickel metal
and silicate minerals. One type, called pallasites, is thought to have originated in the
boundary zone above the core regions where iron meteorites originated. The other major type
of stony-iron meteorites is the mesosiderites.

Tektites (from Greek tektos, molten) are not themselves meteorites, but are rather natural
glass objects up to a few centimeters in size which were formedaccording to most
scientistsby the impacts of large meteorites on Earth's surface. A few researchers have
favored tektites originating from the Moon as volcanic ejecta, but this theory has lost much of
its support over the last few decades.

Meteorite recovery
Falls

See also: Impact event and Meteorite fall

Car seat and muffler hit by the Benld meteorite in 1938, with the meteorite inset. An
observed fall.

Most meteorite falls are recovered on the basis of eye-witness accounts of the fireball or the
impact of the object on the ground, or both. Therefore, despite the fact that meteorites fall
with virtually equal probability everywhere on Earth, verified meteorite falls tend to be
concentrated in areas with high human population densities such as Europe, Japan, and
northern India.

A small number of meteorite falls have been observed with automated cameras and recovered
following calculation of the impact point. The first of these was the Pibram meteorite, which
fell in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1959.[18] In this case, two cameras used
to photograph meteors captured images of the fireball. The images were used both to
determine the location of the stones on the ground and, more significantly, to calculate for the
first time an accurate orbit for a recovered meteorite.

Following the Pribram fall, other nations established automated observing programs aimed at
studying infalling meteorites. One of these was the Prairie Network, operated by the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1963 to 1975 in the midwestern US. This
program also observed a meteorite fall, the Lost City chondrite, allowing its recovery and a
calculation of its orbit.[19] Another program in Canada, the Meteorite Observation and
Recovery Project, ran from 1971 to 1985. It too recovered a single meteorite, Innisfree, in
1977.[20] Finally, observations by the European Fireball Network, a descendant of the original
Czech program that recovered Pribram, led to the discovery and orbit calculations for the
Neuschwanstein meteorite in 2002.[21] NASA has an automated system that detects meteors
and calculates the orbit, magnitude, ground track, and other parameters over the southeast
USA, which often detects a number of events each night.[22]

Finds

Until the twentieth century, only a few hundred meteorite finds had ever been discovered.
More than 80% of these were iron and stony-iron meteorites, which are easily distinguished
from local rocks. To this day, few stony meteorites are reported each year that can be
considered to be "accidental" finds. The reason there are now more than 30,000 meteorite
finds in the world's collections started with the discovery by Harvey H. Nininger that
meteorites are much more common on the surface of the Earth than was previously thought.

The Great Plains of the US

Nininger's strategy was to search for meteorites in the Great Plains of the United States,
where the land was largely cultivated and the soil contained few rocks. Between the late
1920s and the 1950s, he traveled across the region, educating local people about what
meteorites looked like and what to do if they thought they had found one, for example, in the
course of clearing a field. The result was the discovery of over 200 new meteorites, mostly
stony types.[23]

In the late 1960s, Roosevelt County, New Mexico in the Great Plains was found to be a
particularly good place to find meteorites. After the discovery of a few meteorites in 1967, a
public awareness campaign resulted in the finding of nearly 100 new specimens in the next
few years, with many being by a single person, Ivan Wilson. In total, nearly 140 meteorites
were found in the region since 1967. In the area of the finds, the ground was originally
covered by a shallow, loose soil sitting atop a hardpan layer. During the dustbowl era, the
loose soil was blown off, leaving any rocks and meteorites that were present stranded on the
exposed surface.[24]

Antarctica

A scanning electron microscope revealed structures resembling a life formin the form of
bacteria fossils- on the meteorite fragment ALH84001 discovered in Antarctica in 1984.
Under the structures were revealed that were interpreted as remainsin the form of fossils
of bacteria-like lifeforms.

A few meteorites were found in Antarctica between 1912 and 1964. In 1969, the 10th
Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found nine meteorites on a blue ice field near the
Yamato Mountains. With this discovery, came the realization that movement of ice sheets
might act to concentrate meteorites in certain areas. After a dozen other specimens were
found in the same place in 1973, a Japanese expedition was launched in 1974 dedicated to the
search for meteorites. This team recovered nearly 700 meteorites.

Shortly thereafter, the United States began its own program to search for Antarctic
meteorites, operating along the Transantarctic Mountains on the other side of the continent:
the ANtarctic Search for METeorites (ANSMET) program. European teams, starting with a
consortium called "EUROMET" in the late 1980s, and continuing with a program by the
Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide have also conducted systematic
searches for Antarctic meteorites.

The Antarctic Scientific Exploration of China has conducted successful meteorite searches
since 2000. A Korean program (KOREAMET) was launched in 2007 and has collected a few
meteorites.[25] The combined efforts of all of these expeditions have produced more than
23,000 classified meteorite specimens since 1974, with thousands more that have not yet
been classified. For more information see the article by Harvey (2003).[26]

Australia

At about the same time as meteorite concentrations were being discovered in the cold desert
of Antarctica, collectors discovered that many meteorites could also be found in the hot
deserts of Australia. Several dozen meteorites had already been found in the Nullarbor region
of Western and South Australia. Systematic searches between about 1971 and the present
recovered more than 500 others,[27] ~300 of which are currently well characterized. The
meteorites can be found in this region because the land presents a flat, featureless, plain
covered by limestone. In the extremely arid climate, there has been relatively little
weathering or sedimentation on the surface for tens of thousands of years, allowing
meteorites to accumulate without being buried or destroyed. The dark colored meteorites can
then be recognized among the very different looking limestone pebbles and rocks.

The Sahara and rising commercialization

This small meteorite is from the NWA 869 strewn field, near Tindouf, Algeria. Currently
classified as a L5 COMMON CHONDRITE it shows brecciation and even carbon
inclusions.[28]
In 198687, a German team installing a network of seismic stations while prospecting for oil
discovered about 65 meteorites on a flat, desert plain about 100 kilometres (62 mi) southeast
of Dirj (Daraj), Libya. A few years later, a desert enthusiast saw photographs of meteorites
being recovered by scientists in Antarctica, and thought that he had seen similar occurrences
in northern Africa. In 1989, he recovered about 100 meteorites from several distinct locations
in Libya and Algeria. Over the next several years, he and others who followed found at least
400 more meteorites. The find locations were generally in regions known as regs or hamadas:
flat, featureless areas covered only by small pebbles and minor amounts of sand.[29] Dark-
colored meteorites can be easily spotted in these places, where they have also been well
preserved due to the arid climate, and in the case of the Dar al Gani meteorite field, favorable
geology consisting of basic rocks (clays, dolomites, and limestones) and lacking erosive
quartz sand.[30]

Although meteorites had been sold commercially and collected by hobbyists for many
decades, up to the time of the Saharan finds of the late 1980s and early 1990s, most
meteorites were deposited in or purchased by museums and similar institutions where they
were exhibited and made available for scientific research. The sudden availability of large
numbers of meteorites that could be found with relative ease in places that were readily
accessible (especially compared to Antarctica), led to a rapid rise in commercial collection of
meteorites. This process was accelerated when, in 1997, meteorites coming from both the
Moon and Mars were found in Libya. By the late 1990s, private meteorite-collecting
expeditions had been launched throughout the Sahara. Specimens of the meteorites recovered
in this way are still deposited in research collections, but most of the material is sold to
private collectors. These expeditions have now brought the total number of well-described
meteorites found in Algeria and Libya to more than 2000.

As word spread in Saharan countries about the growing profitability of the meteorite trade,
meteorite markets came into existence, especially in Morocco, fed by nomads and local
people who combed the deserts looking for specimens to sell. Many thousands of meteorites
have been distributed in this way, most of which lack any information about how, when, or
where they were discovered. These are the so-called "Northwest Africa" meteorites.

Arabian Peninsula

Meteorite find in situ on desert pavement, Rub' al Khali, Saudi Arabia. Probable chondrite,
weight 408.5 gms.

In 1999, meteorite hunters discovered that the desert in southern and central Oman were also
favorable for the collection of many specimens. The gravel plains in the Dhofar and Al Wusta
regions of Oman, south of the sandy deserts of the Rub' al Khali, had yielded about 5,000
meteorites as of mid-2009. Included among these are a large number of lunar and Martian
meteorites, making Oman a particularly important area both for scientists and collectors.
Early expeditions to Oman were mainly done by commercial meteorite dealers, however
international teams of Omani and European scientists have also now collected specimens.

The recovery of meteorites from Oman is currently prohibited by national law, but a number
of international hunters continue to remove specimens now deemed "national treasures." This
new law provoked a small international incident, as its implementation preceded any public
notification of such a law, resulting in the prolonged imprisonment of a large group of
meteorite hunters primarily from Russia, but whose party also consisted of members from the
US as well as several other European countries.

The Black Stone in the wall of the Kaaba in Mecca is thought to be a meteorite by some
secular historians, but there is little support for this in the scientific literature.[31]

The American Southwest

A stony meteorite (H5) found just north of Barstow, California, in 2006

Beginning in the mid-1990s, amateur meteorite hunters began scouring the arid areas of the
southwestern United States. To date, meteorites numbering possibly into the thousands have
been recovered from the Mojave, Sonoran, Great Basin, and Chihuahuan Deserts, with many
being recovered on dry lake beds. Significant finds include the Superior Valley 014
Acapulcoite, one of two of its type found within the United States,[32][33] as well as the Blue
Eagle meteorite, the first Rumuruti-type chondrite yet found in the Americas.[34] Perhaps the
most notable find in recent years has been the Los Angeles meteorite, a Martian meteorite
that was reportedly found by Robert Verish somewhere in the California Mojave Desert.[35] A
number of finds from the American Southwest have yet to be formally submitted to the
Meteorite Nomenclature Committee, as many finders think it is unwise to publicly state the
coordinates of their discoveries for fear of confiscation by the federal government, and fear of
competition with other hunters at published find sites.[36] Several of the meteorites found
recently are currently on display in the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

Meteorites in history
Meteorite falls may have been the source of cultish worship. The cult in the Temple of
Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World possibly originated with
the observation of a meteorite fall which was understood by contemporaries to have fallen to
the earth from the abode of deities. There are reports that a sacred stone was enshrined at the
temple that may have been a meteorite. Although the use of the metal found in meteorites
also is recorded in myths of many countries and cultures where the celestial source often was
acknowledged, scientific documentation only began in the last few centuries.

In the 1970s a stone meteorite was uncovered during an archaeological dig at Danebury Iron
Age hillfort, Danebury England. It was found deposited part way down in an Iron Age pit.
Since it must have been deliberately placed there, this could indicate one of the first (known)
human finds of a meteorite in Europe.

Some Native Americans treated meteorites as ceremonial objects. In 1915, a 135-pound iron
meteorite was found in a Sinagua (c. 11001200) burial cyst near Camp Verde, Arizona,
respectfully wrapped in a feather cloth.[37] A small pallasite was found in a pottery jar in an
old burial found at Pojoaque Pueblo, New Mexico. Nininger reports several other such
instances, in the Southwest US and elsewhere, such as the discovery of Native American
beads of meteoric iron found in Hopewell burial mounds, and the discovery of the Winona
meteorite in a Native American stone-walled crypt.[37][38]

A lance made from a Narwhal tusk with a Meteorite iron head

Indigenous peoples often prized iron-nickel meteorites as an easy, if limited, source of iron
metal. For example, the Inuit used chips of the Cape York meteorite to form cutting edges for
tools and spear tips.

The German physicist, Ernst Florens Chladni, was the first to publish the then audacious idea
that meteorites were rocks from space.[39] He published his booklet, "On the Origin of the
Pallas Iron and Others Similar to it, and on Some Associated Natural Phenomena", in 1794.
In this he compiled all available data on several meteorite finds and falls concluded that they
must have their origins in outer space. The scientific community of the time responded with
resistance and mockery.[40] It took nearly ten years before a general acceptance of the origin
of meteorites was achieved through the work of the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Biot and
the British chemist, Edward Howard. Biot's study, initiated by the French Academy of
Sciences, was compelled by a meteorite fall of thousands of meteorites on April 26, 1803
from the skies of L'Aigle, France.[41][42]

One of the leading theories for the cause of the CretaceousPaleogene extinction event that
included the dinosaurs is a large meteorite impact. The Chicxulub Crater has been identified
as the site of this impact. There has been a lively scientific debate as to whether other major
extinctions, including the ones at the end of the Permian and Triassic periods might also have
been the result of large impact events, but the evidence is much less compelling than for the
end Cretaceous extinction.

The Willamette Meteorite, the largest ever to be found in the United States

There are several reported instances of falling meteorites having killed people and livestock,
but a few of these appear more credible than others. The most infamous reported fatality from
a meteorite impact is that of an Egyptian dog that was killed in 1911, although this report is
highly disputed. This meteorite fall was identified in the 1980s as Martian in origin. There is
substantial evidence that the meteorite known as Valera (Venezuela 1972, see Meteorite fall)
hit and killed a cow upon impact, nearly dividing the animal in two, and similar
unsubstantiated reports of a horse being struck and killed by a stone of the New Concord fall
also abound. Throughout history, many first and second-hand reports of meteorites falling on
and killing both humans and other animals abound. One example is from 1490 AD in China,
which purportedly killed thousands of people.[43] John Lewis has compiled some of these
reports, and summarizes, "No one in recorded history has ever been killed by a meteorite in
the presence of a meteoriticist and a medical doctor" and "reviewers who make sweeping
negative conclusions usually do not cite any of the primary publications in which the
eyewitnesses describe their experiences, and give no evidence of having read them".[44]

The first known modern case of a human hit by a space rock occurred on 30 November 1954
in Sylacauga, Alabama.[45] There a 4 kilograms (8.8 lb) stone chondrite[46] crashed through a
roof and hit Ann Hodges in her living room after it bounced off her radio. She was badly
bruised. The Hodges meteorite, or Sylacauga meteorite, is currently on exhibit at the
Alabama Museum of Natural History.

Another claim was put forth by a young boy who stated that he had been hit by a small (~3
gram) stone of the Mbale meteorite fall from Uganda, and who stood to gain nothing from
this assertion. The stone reportedly fell through a number of banana leaves before striking the
boy on the head, causing little to no pain, as it was small enough to have been slowed by both
friction with the atmosphere as well as that with banana leaves, before striking the boy.

In 2009 a small meteorite struck a boy in Essen, Germany, scarring his hand. Its identity as a
meteorite was confirmed by Ansgar Kortem, director of the Walter Hohmann Observatory.[47]

Several persons have since claimed[48] to have been struck by "meteorites" but no verifiable
meteorites have resulted.

Meteorite weathering
See also: Meteorite weathering

Most meteorites date from the oldest times in the solar system and are by far the oldest
material available on our planet. However, despite their age, they are fairly vulnerable to
terrestrial environment: water, salt, oxygen attack the meteorites as soon they reach the
ground.

The terrestrial alteration of meteorites is called weathering. In order to quantify the degree of
alteration that a meteorite experienced, several qualitative weathering indices have been
applied to Antarctic and desertic samples.[49]

The most known weathering scale, used for stone meteorites, ranges from W0 (pristine state)
to W6 (heavy alteration).

Notable meteorites
Allende, largest known carbonaceous chondrite (Chihuahua, Mexico, 1969).
Allan Hills 81005 First meteorite determined to be of lunar origin.
Allan Hills 84001 Mars meteorite that was claimed to prove the existence of life on
Mars.
The Bacubirito Meteorite (Meteroito de Bacubirito) A meteorite estimated to weigh
2030 short tons (1827 t). It is on display at the Centro de Ciencias de Sinaloa in
Culiacn, Sinaloa, Mexico.
Canyon Diablo Iron meteorite used by prehistoric Native Americans.
Cape York One of the largest meteorites in the world. A 34 ton fragment called
"Ahnighito", is exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History; the largest
meteorite on exhibit in any museum.
Elbogen The oldest recorded meteorite in the Czech Republic, also known as the
"betwitched burgrave".
Huckitta A large Australian Pallasite.
Hoba The largest known meteorite.
Hrascina meteorite Croatian meteorite first speculated as originating from outer
space.
Kaidun Possibly from the martian moon Phobos.
Murchison A carbonaceous chondrite found to contain nucleobases the building
block of life.
Ngata The oldest meteorite whose fall can be dated precisely (to May 19, 861, at
Ngata)
Orgueil Object of a hoax that involved adhering a seed to part of the meteorite.
Sikhote-Alin Massive iron meteorite impact event that occurred on February 12,
1947.
Tucson Ring Ring shaped meteorite, used by a blacksmith as a table, in Tucson AZ.
Currently at the Smithsonian.[50]
Willamette The largest meteorite ever found in the United States.
The Peruvian meteorite event On 15 September 2007, a stony meteorite that may
have weighed as much as 4000 kilograms created a crater 13 meters in diameter near
the village of Carancas, Peru.[51]
2013 Russian meteor event a 17 metre diameter, 10 000 ton[52] asteroid hit the
atmosphere above Chelyabinsk, Russia at 18 km/s around 09:20 local time (03:20
 UTC) 15 February 2013, producing a very bright fireball[53] in the morning sky. A
number of small meteorite fragments have since been found nearby.[54]

Apart from meteorites fallen onto the Earth, two tiny fragments of asteroids were found
among the samples collected on the Moon; these were the Bench Crater meteorite (Apollo 12,
1969) and the Hadley Rille meteorite (Apollo 15, 1971).[55] Furthermore the Opportunity
rover discovered the "Heat Shield Rock" meteorite on Mars in addition to five similar iron
meteorites. Two nickel-iron meteorites were identified by the Spirit rover.

Notable large impact craters

Acraman crater in South Australia (90 kilometres (56 mi) diameter)
Brent crater in northern Ontario (3.8 kilometres (2.4 mi) diameter)
Chesapeake Bay impact crater (90 kilometres (56 mi) diameter)
Chicxulub Crater off the coast of Yucatn (170 kilometres (110 mi) diameter)
Clearwater Lakes a double crater impact in Qubec, Canada (26 and 36 kilometres (16
and 22 mi) in diameter)
Lonar crater in India (1.83 kilometres (1.14 mi) diameter)
Lumparn in the Aaland Islands, in the Baltic Sea (9 kilometres (5.6 mi) diameter)
Manicouagan Reservoir in Qubec, Canada (100 kilometres (62 mi) diameter)
Manson crater in Iowa (38 kilometres (24 mi) crater is buried)
Meteor Crater in Arizona, also known as "Barringer Crater", the first confirmed
terrestrial impact crater. (1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) diameter)
Mjlnir impact crater in the Barents Sea (40 kilometres (25 mi) diameter)
Nrdlinger Ries crater in Bavaria, Germany (25 kilometres (16 mi) diameter)
Popigai crater in Russia (100 kilometres (62 mi) diameter)
Siljan (lake) in Sweden, largest crater in Europe (52 kilometres (32 mi) diameter)
Sudbury Basin in Ontario, Canada (250 kilometres (160 mi) diameter).
Ungava Bay in Qubec, Canada (260 by 320 kilometres (160 by 200 mi))
Vredefort Crater in South Africa, the largest known impact crater on Earth (300
kilometres (190 mi) diameter from an estimated 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) wide
meteorite).

Notable disintegrating meteoroids