What are meteorites made of?

METEORITES

Thousands of tonnes of rocky material enter Earth’s atmosphere each year. Most of it originates from asteroids, but some comes from comets, the Moon, and even Mars. As the rocky pieces close in on Earth they are termed meteoroids. Most burn up, but those that survive and land are known as meteorites. There are three main types: stony meteorites, iron meteorites, and stony-iron meteorites – the rarest kind.

  • ESQUEL This stony-iron meteorite was collected in Esquel, Argentina, in 1951. Golden-coloured crystals of the mineral olivine are embedded in the iron-nickel metal.
  • THIEL The Thiel Mountains stony-iron meteorite was one of the first found in Antarctica, in 1962.
  • METEOR Meteoroids burning up in Earth’s atmosphere produce bright trails. These short-lived streaks of light are termed meteors, or shooting stars. About a million occur every day.
  • MURCHISON Stony meteorites are the most common. This one, the Murchison, fell in Australia in 1969. It is one of the most studied meteorites and contains minerals, water and complex organic molecules.
  • BARWELL The Barwell meteorite is one of a shower of stones that fell in England in 1965. As it plummeted through Earth’s atmosphere, friction caused the outer surface to heat and melt. This later solidified into a black crust.
  • CANON DIABLO This sliced and polished iron meteorite is a piece of the asteroid that produced the Barringer Crater. The pieces found weigh 30 tonnes in total, yet they are only a small fraction of the original asteroid.
  • IMPACT CRATER Meteorites can produce craters when they crash into Earth. The Barringer Crater in the Arizona Desert, USA, shown here under a rare blanket of snow, measures 1.2 km (0.75 miles) across and was formed about 50,000 years ago.
  • GIBEON Iron meteorites are the second most common type, after stony meteorites. The Gibeon is mainly iron with a small amount of nickel. It is one of many found in Namibia since the 1830s.
  • CALCALONG CREEK More than 50 meteorites found on Earth originated on the Moon, blasted off by asteroid impact. The Calcalong creek meteorite, found in Australia, is lunar surface soil that was turned to rock by such an impact.
  • NAKHLA This stony meteorite is one of more than 30 found on Earth that originated on Mars. It was blasted off the planet and spent many millions of years in space before landing in Egypt on 28 June 1911.
  • TEKTITES Small glassy bodies known as tektites can form when a large meteorite hits Earth. The impact shatters and melts surrounding Earth rock, flinging it upwards. It cools and hardens, falling back to Earth as glassy pieces.

Picture Credit : Google

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