
that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical object
s called meteoroid
s, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroid
s. When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, ram pressure
(not friction
) causes the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting/falling star.
1492 The Ensisheim Meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France.
1804 High Possil Meteorite: The first recorded meteorite in Scotland falls in Possil.
1846 The Cape Girardeau meteorite, a 2.3 kg chondrite-type meteorite strikes near the town of Cape Girardeau in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri.
1861 The Canellas meteorite, an 859-gram chondrite-type meteorite, strikes the earth near Barcelona, Spain.
1881 A meteorite lands near the village of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.
1911 A 772 gram stony meteorite strikes the earth near Kilbourn, Columbia County, Wisconsin damaging a barn.
1912 A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town.
1916 A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite strikes a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.
1932 A {{convert|5.1|kg|lb}} chondrite-type meteorite breaks into at least seven pieces and lands near the town of Archie in Cass County, Missouri.
1973 The Cañon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite, strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.

that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical object
s called meteoroid
s, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroid
s. When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, ram pressure
(not friction
) causes 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
and Mars
.
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 over 38,660 well-documented meteorite finds.
Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories: stony meteorites are rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals
; iron meteorite
s 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.
Naming
Meteorites are always named for the place where they were found, 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 Sylacaugameteorite 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

s to basketball
s or larger do reach the surface each year; only 5 or 6 of these are typically recovered and made known to scientists. Few meteorites are large enough to create large impact crater
s. 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.

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. 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 comet
s or asteroid
s, up to millions of tons, are disrupted in the atmosphere, and do not make impact craters. 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 ton
s 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.)
Several phenomena are well documented during witnessed meteorite falls too small to produce hypervelocity craters. 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 boom
s as well as shock wave
s 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 cm 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, and others forming a frost upon their surface.
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

s and achondrite
s. Only 6% of meteorites are iron meteorite
s or a blend of rock and metal, the stony-iron meteorite
s. Modern classification of meteorites is complex, the review paper of Krot et al. (2007) summarizes modern meteorite taxonomy.
About 86% of the meteorites that fall on Earth are chondrite
s, which are named for the small, round particles they contain. These particles, or chondrule
s, 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 acid
s, 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 comet
s, 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 achondrite
s (meaning they do not contain chondrules), some of which are similar to terrestrial mafic igneous rock
s. Most achondrites are also ancient rocks, and are thought to represent crustal material of asteroids. One large family of achondrites (the HED meteorite
s) may have originated on the asteroid 4 Vesta
. 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 man.
About 5% of meteorites that fall are iron
meteorites with intergrowths of iron-nickel
alloy
s, such as kamacite
and taenite
. Most iron meteorites are thought to come from the core of a number 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 irons in collection areas such as Antarctica, where most of the meteoric material that has fallen can be recovered, it is possible that the actual percentage of iron-meteorite falls is lower than 5%.
Stony-iron meteorites constitute the remaining 1%. They are a mixture of iron-nickel metal and silicate
minerals. One type, called pallasite
s, 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 mesosiderite
s.
Tektites (from Greek tektos, molten) are not themselves meteorites, but are rather natural glass objects up to a few centimeters in size which were formed—according to most scientists—by 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.
Falls

are recovered on the basis of eye-witness accounts of the fireball or the actual impact of the object on the ground, or both. Therefore, despite the fact that meteorites actually 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 Příbram
meteorite, which fell in Czechoslovakia
(now the Czech Republic) in 1959. In this case, two cameras used to photograph meteor
s 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. Another program in Canada, the Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project, ran from 1971 to 1985. It too recovered a single meteorite, Innisfree, in 1977. 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.
Finds
Until the 20th century, only a few hundred meteorite finds had ever been discovered. Over 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 over 30,000 meteorite finds in the world's collections started with the discovery by Harvey H. Niningerthat 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 Plainsof 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.
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 found by a single person, Mr. 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.
Antarctica

near the Yamato Mountains. With this discovery, came the realization that movement of ice sheet
s 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. 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).
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 Nullabor region of Western
and South Australia
. Systematic searches between about 1971 and the present recovered over 500 more, ~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
In 1986-87, a German team installing a network of seismic stations while prospecting for oil discovered about 65 meteorites on a flat, desert plain about 100 km 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 hamada
s: flat, featureless areas covered only by small pebbles and minor amounts of sand. 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 Dal al Gani meteorite field, favorable geology consisting of basic
rocks (clays, dolomite
s, and limestone
s) and lacking erosive quartz
sand
.
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 over 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
In 1999, meteorite hunters discovered that the desert in southern and central Omanwere 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 actually 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 U.S. 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
The American Southwest
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 Desert
s, 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 as well as the Blue Eagle meteorite, the first Rumuruti-type chondrite yet found in the Americas. Perhaps the most notable find in recent years has been the Los Angeles meteorite, a martian meteorite that was reportedly found by Robert Verish.
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 of 'poaching' by other hunters at known find sites.
Several of the meteorites found recently are currently on display in the Griffith Observatory
in Los Angeles.
Meteorites in history
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.1100-1200 AD) burial cyst near Camp Verde, Arizona
, respectfully wrapped in a feather cloth. 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.

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 that meteorites were actually rocks from space. 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. It took nearly 10 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.
One of the leading theories
for the cause of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event that included the dinosaur
s 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.

in origin. However, there is substantial evidence that the meteorite known as Valera 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, but none have been well documented.
The first known modern case of a human hit by a space rock occurred on 30 November 1954 in Sylacauga, Alabama
. There a 4 kg stone chondrite 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.
Several persons have since claimed to have been struck by "meteorites" but no verifiable meteorites have resulted.
Meteorite falls may also be the source of cultish worship. The cult in the Temple of Artemis (Diana) 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 Zeus, the principal Greek deity.
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 pretty 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.
The most known weathering scale, used for stone meteorites, ranges from W0 (pristine state) to W6 (heavy alteration).
Notable meteorites
- AllendeAllende meteoriteThe Allende meteorite is the largest carbonaceous chondrite ever found on Earth. The fireball was witnessed at 1:05 a.m. on February 8, 1969, falling over the Mexican state of Chihuahua. After breaking up in the atmosphere, an extensive search for pieces was conducted and it is often described as...
, largest known carbonaceous chondriteCarbonaceous chondriteCarbonaceous chondrites or C chondrites are a class of chondritic meteorites comprising at least 7 known groups and many ungrouped meteorites. They include some of the most primitive known meteorites...
(Chihuahua, Mexico, 1969). - Allan Hills 81005 - First meteorite determined to be of lunar originLunar meteoriteA Lunar meteorite is a meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon.-Discovery:In January 1982, John Schutt, leading an expedition in Antarctica for the ANSMET program, found a meteorite that he recognized to be unusual...
. - Allan Hills 84001ALH84001Allan Hills 84001 is a meteorite that was found in Allan Hills, Antarctica on December 27, 1984 by a team of U.S. meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. Like other members of the group of SNCs , ALH 84001 is thought to be from Mars. However, it does not fit into any of the previously...
- Mars meteoriteMars meteoriteA martian meteorite is a rock that formed on the planet Mars, was ejected from Mars by the impact of an asteroid or comet, and landed on the Earth. Of over 53000 meteorites that have been found on Earth, 99 are martian...
that was claimed to prove the existence of life on MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. - The Bacubirito Meteorite (Meteroito de Bacubirito) - A meteorite estimated to weigh between 20 and 30 tons. It is on display at the Centro de Ciencias de Sinaloa in CuliacánCuliacánCuliacán is a city in northwestern Mexico, the largest city in the state of Sinaloa as well as its capital and capital of the municipality of Culiacán. With 675,773 inhabitants in the city , and 858,638 in the municipality, it is the largest city in the state of Sinaloa...
, SinaloaSinaloaSinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....
, Mexico. - Canyon DiabloCanyon Diablo meteoriteThe Canyon Diablo meteorite comprises many fragments of the asteroid that impacted at Barringer Crater , Arizona, USA. Meteorites have been found around the crater rim, and are named for nearby Canyon Diablo, which lies about three to four miles west of the crater.-History:The asteroid fell about...
- Iron meteorite used by prehistoric Native AmericansNative Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. - Cape YorkCape York meteoriteThe Cape York meteorite is named for Cape York, the location of its discovery in Savissivik, Greenland, and is one of the largest iron meteorites in the world.-History:The meteorite collided with Earth nearly 10,000 years ago...
- One of the largest meteorites in the world. A 34 ton fragment called "Ahnighito", is exhibited at the American Museum of Natural HistoryAmerican Museum of Natural HistoryThe American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
; the largest meteorite on exhibit in any museum. - ElbogenElbogen (meteorite)Elbogen , also the Loket Iron , is an iron meteorite that fell in the village of Loket, Karlovy Vary region, in the Czech Republic, about the year 1400. Also known during the Middle Ages as the "bewitched burgrave" of Elbogen, due to a cursed Count at the Elbogen castle, it is the oldest of 15...
- The oldest recorded meteorite in the Czech RepublicCzech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, also known as the "betwitched burgrave". - HuckittaHuckittaHuckitta is a pallasite meteorite recovered in 1937 from Huckitta Cattle Station, Northern Territory, Australia.-History:In 1924 a meteoritic mass of 1084 grams was found by Herbert Basedow on Burt Plain , about 17 km north of Alice Springs. This mass was called Alice Springs...
- The largest main mass Pallasite. - HobaHoba meteoriteHoba is a meteorite that lies on the farm "Hoba West", not far from Grootfontein, in the Otjozondjupa Region of Namibia. It has been uncovered but, because of its large mass, has never been moved from where it fell...
- The largest known meteorite. - HrascinaHrašcinaHrašćina is a municipality in the Krapina-Zagorje County in Croatia. According to the 2001 census, there are 1,826 inhabitants in the area, absolute majority which are Croats....
meteorite - CroatiaCroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
n meteorite first speculated as originating from outer space. - KaidunKaidun meteoriteKaidun is a meteorite that fell on 3 December 1980 on a Soviet military base near what is now Al-Khuraybah in Yemen. A fireball was observed travelling from the northwest to the southeast, and a single stone weighing about 2 kilograms was recovered from a small impact pit...
- Possibly from the martian moonMars' natural satellitesMars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are thought to be captured asteroids. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall, and are named after the characters Phobos and Deimos who, in Greek mythology, accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle...
PhobosPhobos (moon)Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars. Both moons were discovered in 1877. With a mean radius of , Phobos is 7.24 times as massive as Deimos...
. - MurchisonMurchison meteoriteThe Murchison meteorite is named after Murchison, Victoria, in Australia. It is one of the most studied meteorites due to its large mass , the fact that it was an observed fall, and it belongs to a group of meteorites rich in organic compounds....
- A carbonaceousCarbonaceousCarbonaceous is the defining attribute of a substance rich in carbon. Particularly, carbonaceous hydrocarbons are very unsaturated, high-molecular-weight hydrocarbons, having an elevated carbon:hydrogen ratio....
chondriteChondriteChondrites are stony meteorites that have not been modified due to melting or differentiation of the parent body. They formed when various types of dust and small grains that were present in the early solar system accreted to form primitive asteroids...
found to contain nucleobases - the building block of life. - Nōgata - The oldest meteorite whose fall can be dated precisely (to May 19, 861, at NōgataNogata, Fukuokais a city located in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. Located near Kitakyūshū and Iizuka, Nōgata is in the center of the Chikuhō region of Fukuoka....
) - Orgueil - Object of a hoax that involved adhering a seedSeedA seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
to part of the meteorite. - Sikhote-AlinSikhote-Alin MeteoriteSikhote-Alin is an iron meteorite that fell in 1947 on the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in eastern Siberia. This fall is unique in the history of meteorites. Though large iron meteorite falls had been witnessed previously and fragments recovered, never before in recorded history had a fall of this...
- Massive iron meteorite impact eventImpact eventAn impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant...
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.
- WillametteWillamette MeteoriteThe Willamette Meteorite, officially named Willamette, is an iron-nickel meteorite discovered in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is the largest meteorite found in North America and the sixth largest in the world...
- The largest meteorite ever found in the United States. - The Peruvian meteorite eventCarancas impact eventThe Carancas impact event refers to the fall of the Carancas chondritic meteorite on September 15, 2007, near the village of Carancas in Peru, close to the Bolivian border and Lake Titicaca. The impact created a crater and scorched earth around its location...
- 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, PeruPeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
.
Apart from meteorites fallen onto the Earth, "Heat Shield Rock
" is a meteorite which was found on Mars
, and two tiny fragments of asteroids were found among the samples collected on the Moon by Apollo 12
(1969) and Apollo 15
(1971) astronauts.
Notable large impact craters
- Acraman craterAcraman craterAcraman crater is a deeply eroded impact crater in the Gawler Ranges of South Australia. Its location is marked by Lake Acraman, a circular ephemeral playa lake about 20 km in diameter....
in South Australia (90 km diameter) - Brent craterBrent craterThe Brent crater is an impact crater in both the geographic township of Deacon, Unorganized South Nipissing District and the municipal township of Papineau-Cameron in Nipissing District, northeastern Ontario, Canada, located north of Cedar Lake in northern Algonquin Provincial Park. It is in...
in northern OntarioOntarioOntario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
(3.8 km diameter) - Chesapeake Bay impact craterChesapeake Bay impact craterThe Chesapeake Bay impact crater was formed by a bolide that impacted the eastern shore of North America about 35 million years ago, in the late Eocene epoch. It is one of the best-preserved "wet-target" or marine impact craters, and the largest known impact crater in the U.S...
(90 km diameter) - Chicxulub CraterChicxulub CraterThe Chicxulub crater is an ancient impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named...
off the coast of YucatánYucatánYucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....
(170 km diameter) - Clearwater LakesClearwater LakesThe Lac à l'Eau Claire , also called the Clearwater Lakes in English, Wiyasakami in Cree and Allait Qasigialingat by the Inuit, are a pair of circular lakes on the Canadian Shield in Quebec, Canada, near Hudson Bay.The lakes are actually a single body of water with a sprinkling of islands forming a...
a double crater impact in Québec, Canada (26 km and 36 km in diameter) - Lonar crater in India (1.83 km diameter)
- Manicouagan ReservoirManicouagan ReservoirManicouagan Reservoir is an annular lake in central Quebec, Canada. The lake covers an area of 1,942 km², and its eastern shore is accessible via Route 389. The island in the centre of the lake is known as René-Levasseur Island, and its highest point is Mount Babel...
in Québec, Canada (100 km diameter) - Manson craterManson craterThe Manson impact crater is near the site of Manson, Iowa where an asteroid or comet nucleus struck the Earth during the Cretaceous Period, 74 Ma...
in Iowa (38 km crater is buried) - Meteor CraterMeteor CraterMeteor Crater is a meteorite impact crater located approximately east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern Arizona desert of the United States. Because the US Department of the Interior Division of Names commonly recognizes names of natural features derived from the nearest post office, the...
in ArizonaArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, also known as Barringer Crater, the first confirmed terrestrial impact crater. (1.2 km diameter) - Mjølnir impact crater in the Barents SeaBarents SeaThe Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...
(40 km diameter) - Nördlinger RiesNördlinger RiesThe Nördlinger Ries is a large circular depression in western Bavaria, Germany, located north of the Danube in the district of Donau-Ries. The city of Nördlingen is located about southwest of the centre of the depression....
crater in Bavaria, Germany (25 km diameter) - Popigai craterPopigai craterThe Popigai crater in Siberia, Russia is tied with Manicouagan Crater as the fourth largest verified impact crater on Earth. A large bolide impact created the diameter crater 35.7 ± 0.2 million years ago during the late Eocene . The crater is 1½ hours from the outpost of Khatanga...
in Russia (100 km diameter) - Siljan (lake)Siljan (lake)Siljan, in Dalarna in central Sweden, is Sweden's sixth largest lake. The cumulative area of Siljan and the adjacent, smaller lakes Orsasjön and Insjön is . Siljan reaches a maximum depth of , and its surface is situated above sea level...
in Sweden, largest crater in Europe (52 km diameter) - Sudbury BasinSudbury BasinThe Sudbury Basin, also known as Sudbury Structure or the Sudbury Nickel Irruptive, is a major geologic structure in Ontario, Canada. It is the second-largest known impact crater or astrobleme on Earth, as well as one of the oldest....
in Ontario, Canada (250 km diameter). - Vredefort CraterVredefort craterVredefort crater is the largest verified impact crater on Earth. It is located in the Free State Province of South Africa and named after the town of Vredefort, which is situated near its centre. The site is also known as the Vredefort dome or Vredefort impact structure...
in South Africa, the largest known impact crater on Earth (300 km diameter from an estimated 10 km wide meteorite).
Notable disintegrating meteoroids
- Tunguska eventTunguska eventThe Tunguska event, or Tunguska blast or Tunguska explosion, was an enormously powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, at about 7:14 a.m...
in SiberiaSiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
1908 (no crater) (There is no direct evidence that it was a meteoroid) - Vitim eventVitim eventThe Vitim event or Bodaybo event is believed to be an impact by a bolide or comet nucleus in the Vitim River basin. It occurred near the town of Bodaybo in the Mamsko-Chuisky district of Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia on September 25, 2002 at approximately 10:00 p.m....
in Siberia 2002 (no crater)
See also
- Atmospheric focusingAtmospheric focusingAtmospheric focusing is a phenomenon occurring when a large shock wave is produced in the atmosphere, as in a nuclear explosion or large extraterrestrial object impact. The shock wave is refracted horizontally by density variations in the atmosphere so that it can have impacts in localized areas...
, shockwave produced in the atmosphere by a meteor or other cause - BaetylusBaetylusBaetylus is a Semitic word denoting a sacred stone, which was supposedly endowed with life. According to ancient sources, these objects of worship were meteorites, which were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods themselves...
, a Semitic word denoting a sacred stone (often a meteorite) - Carbonaceous chondriteCarbonaceous chondriteCarbonaceous chondrites or C chondrites are a class of chondritic meteorites comprising at least 7 known groups and many ungrouped meteorites. They include some of the most primitive known meteorites...
, a class of chondritic meteorites comprising at least seven known groups and many ungrouped - CarbonadoCarbonadoCarbonado, commonly known as the "Black Diamond", is a natural polycrystalline diamond found in alluvial deposits in the Central African Republic and Brazil. Its natural colour is black or dark grey, and it is more porous than other diamonds....
, commonly known as "black diamond," is hypothesized to be of extraterrestrial origin - Center for Meteorite StudiesCenter for Meteorite StudiesFounded in 1960, on the Tempe Campus of Arizona State University, the Center for Meteorite Studies houses the world's largest university-based meteorite collection. The collection contains specimens from over 1,600 separate meteorite falls and finds, and is actively used internationally for...
at Arizona State University - GeminidsGeminidsThe Geminids are a meteor shower caused by the object 3200 Phaethon, which is thought to be a Palladian asteroid. This would make the Geminids, together with the Quadrantids, the only major meteor showers not originating from a comet...
, a recurring meteor shower caused by an object named 3200 Phaethon3200 Phaethon3200 Phaethon is an asteroid with an unusual orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid . For this reason, it was named after the Greek myth of Phaëton, son of the sun god Helios... - Impact depthImpact depthThe physicist Sir Isaac Newton first developed this idea to get rough approximations for the impact depth for projectiles traveling at high velocities.-Newton's approximation for the impact depth:...
of projectiles traveling at high speed - Impact eventImpact eventAn impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant...
, the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with a planet - Lake Siljan, an impact crater in Sweden
- LeonidsLeonidsThe Leonids is a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky. They tend to peak in November.Earth moves through the meteoroid...
, a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle - Meteor showerMeteor showerA meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller...
- Meteorite classification
- Meteoritical SocietyMeteoritical SocietyThe Meteoritical Society is a non-profit scholarly organization founded in 1933 to promote research and education in planetary science with emphasis on studies of meteorites and other extraterrestrial materials that further our understanding of the origin and history of the solar system.The...
, scholarly organization specializing in meteorites - Near Earth Object
- Neenach Meteorite, Los Angeles County, California
- Solar SystemSolar SystemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
- The British and Irish Meteorite SocietyThe British and Irish Meteorite SocietyThe British and Irish Meteorite Society is a group of 150+ Meteorite researchers and amateurs. The BIMS was formed in 2004 by the meteorite collectors Mark Ford and Dave Harris. The group provides a meteorite collecting and study focus for the UK and Ireland, and is the only meteorite group in the...
- Temagami Magnetic AnomalyTemagami Magnetic AnomalyThe Temagami Magnetic Anomaly, also called the Temagami Anomaly or the Wanapitei Anomaly, is a large buried geologic structure in Ontario, Canada, stretching from Lake Wanapitei in the west to Bear Island in Lake Temagami....
, a large buried geologic structure in the Canadian Shield - Vatican ObservatoryVatican ObservatoryThe Vatican Observatory is an astronomical research and educational institution supported by the Holy See. Originally based in Rome, it now has headquarters and laboratory at the summer residence of the Pope in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, and an observatory at the Mount Graham International...
External links
- The site on meteorites and spatial environment
- Meteoroids Page at NASA's Solar System exploration
- Current meteorite news articles
- Live Meteor Screen
- International Meteorite Collectors Association News and information about meteorite collecting and authentication ethics
- Impact Meteor Crater Viewer Google Maps Page with Locations of Meteor Craters around the world
- Planetary Science Research Discoveries: meteorite articles and photographs
- Chronological listing of meteorites that have struck humans, animals and manmade objects
- Interview with Guy Consolmagno at Astrobiology Magazine (May 12, 2004). Vatican astronomer Dr. Guy ConsolmagnoGuy ConsolmagnoBrother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ , is an American research astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory.-Life:...
discussed his research as curator of one of the world's largest meteorite collections - The British and Irish Meteorite Society
- Types of extraterrestrial material available for study
- Largest meteorites
- Meteorite Times, news and information about meteorite collecting
- The Natural History Museum's meteorite catalogue database
- Meteoritical Society
- Earth Impact Database