A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives an impact with the Earth's surface. The Willamette Meteorite, officially named Willamette, is an Iron-nickel meteorite discovered in the U Outer space, often simply called space, comprises the relatively empty regions of the Universe outside the escape velocities of Celestial bodies. EARTH was a short-lived Japanese vocal trio which released 6 singles and 1 album between 2000 and 2001 While in space it is called a meteoroid. When it enters the atmosphere, air resistance causes the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting star. In Fluid dynamics, drag (sometimes called fluid resistance) is the force that resists the movement of a Solid object through a Fluid (a 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 mid-2006, there are approximately 1,050 witnessed falls having specimens in the world's collections. Meteorite falls are those Meteorites that were witnessed by people or automated devices as they moved through the atmosphere or hit the Earth and were subsequently collected In contrast, there are over 31,000 well-documented meteorite finds^[4].

Meteorites are always named for the place where 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. Sylacauga is a city in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. The Hodges Meteorite is the only documented extraterrestrial object to have struck a Human being. Meteor Crater is a Meteorite Impact crater located approximately 43 miles east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern However, the single, official name designated by the Meteoritical Society is used by scientists, catalogers, and most collectors. The 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 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. Iron Meteorites consist overwhelmingly of Nickel - Iron Alloys The metal taken from these meteorites is known as meteoric iron' and Modern classification schemes divide meteorites into groups according to their structure, chemical and isotopic composition and mineralogy. See Meteorites classification. The ultimate goal of meteorite classification is to group together all Meteorite specimens that share a common origin on a single identifiable parent body

Contents 1 Fall phenomena 2 Meteorite types 3 Meteorite recovery 3.1 Falls 3.2 Finds 3.2.1 The Great Plains of the US 3.2.2 Antarctica 3.2.3 Australia 3.2.4 The Sahara and rising commercialization 3.2.5 Oman 3.2.6 The American Southwest 4 Meteorites in history 5 Notable meteorites 6 Notable meteorite impacts craters 7 Notable disintegrating meteoroids 8 Meteorite-related news 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

Fall phenomena

Most meteoroids disintegrate when entering the Earth's atmosphere. Wisconsin ( or wɪˈskɑnsɨn (French Ouisconsin) is one of the fifty United States of America, located in the north central part of the United States However, an estimated 500 meteorites ranging in size from marbles to basketballs or larger do reach the surface each year; only 5 or 6 of these are typically recovered and made known to scientists. Marble is a nonfoliated Metamorphic rock resulting from the Metamorphism of Limestone, composed mostly of Calcite (a crystalline form of Basketball is a team Sport in which two teams of five active players each try to score points against one another by propelling a ball through a 10 feet (3 m Few meteorites are large enough to create large impact craters. In the broadest sense the term impact crater can be applied to any depression natural or manmade resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with larger body Instead, they typically arrive at the surface at their terminal velocity and, at most, create a small pit. A free falling object achieves its terminal velocity when the downward force of gravity ( Fg)equals the upward force of drag ( Fd) Even so, falling meteorites have reportedly caused damage to property, livestock and people.

Very large meteoroids may strike the ground with a significant fraction of their cosmic velocity, leaving behind a hypervelocity impact crater. The Campo Del Cielo crater field is a group of at least 22 Meteorite Impact craters situated on the border between the provinces of Chaco and The term hypervelocity usually refers to a very high Velocity, typically over 3000 meters per second (6700 mph 11000 km/h 10000 ft/s or Mach 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. Meteor Crater is a Meteorite Impact crater located approximately 43 miles east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern The Odessa Meteor Crater is a Meteorite crater in the southwestern part of Ector County, southwest of the city of Odessa Texas, United The Wabar craters are Meteorite Impact craters found by accident by an explorer searching for the legendary city of Ubar in Arabia 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. A comet is a small Solar System body that orbits the Sun and when close enough to the Sun exhibits a visible coma (atmosphere or a tail — Asteroids, sometimes called Minor planets or planetoids', are bodies—primarily of the inner Solar System —that are smaller than planets but ^[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. The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful Explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony Tunguska River in what is now 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. Units of mass There are three similar units of Mass called the ton: Long ton (simply ton in countries such as the United 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. Morokweng crater (or Morokweng impact structure) is a large Meteorite crater buried beneath the Kalahari Desert near the town of Morokweng ^[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. The term sonic boom is commonly used to refer to the shocks caused by the Supersonic flight of an aircraft These sounds can be heard over wide areas, up to many thousands of square km. The kilometre ( American spelling: kilometer) symbol km is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to one thousand 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 passage through the atmosphere, their surfaces melt and experience ablation. Ablation is defined as the removal of material from the surface of an object by Vaporization, Chipping, or other erosive processes 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 Mathematics, an ellipse (from the Greek ἔλλειψις literally absence) is a Conic section, the locus of points in a In most cases, the largest meteorites in a shower are found farthest down-range in the strewn field.

Meteorite types

About 86% of the meteorites that fall on Earth are chondrites,^[4][11][12] which are named for the small, round particles they contain. Chondrites are stony Meteorites that have not been modified due to Melting or Differentiation of the parent body These particles, or chondrules, are composed mostly of silicate minerals that appear to have been melted while they were free-floating objects in space. Most Meteorites that fall on Earth are Chondrites which are characterized by the presence of round grains called chondrules (from Ancient Greek Chondrites also contain small amounts of organic matter, including amino acids, and presolar grains. In Chemistry, an amino acid is a Molecule containing both Amine and Carboxyl Functional groups In Biochemistry, this Presolar grains are isotopically-distinct clusters of material found in the fine-grained matrix of primitive Meteorites, whose differences from the surrounding meteorite 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. The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the Planets Mars and Jupiter. Like comets, chondritic asteroids are some of the oldest and most primitive materials in the solar system. A comet is a small Solar System body that orbits the Sun and when close enough to the Sun exhibits a visible coma (atmosphere or a tail — Chondrites are often considered to be "the building blocks of the planets".

About 8% of the meteorites that fall on Earth are achondrites, some of which appear to be similar to terrestrial mafic igneous rocks. An achondrite is a stony Meteorite that consists of material similar to terrestrial Basalts or Plutonic rocks Igneous rocks (etymology from Latin ignis, fire are rocks formed by solidification of cooled Magma (molten rock 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. The HED meteorites are a grouping of Achondrite meteorite types the Howardites * Eucrites * Diogenites * Dunite TemplateInfobox Planet. --> 4 Vesta (ˈvɛstə Vesta is the second most massive object in the Asteroid belt 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 Luna programme (from the Russian word "Luna" meaning "Moon" occasionally called Lunik or Lunnik, was a series of Robotic spacecraft 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 alloys, such as kamacite and taenite. Iron (ˈаɪɚn is a Chemical element with the symbol Fe (ferrum and Atomic number 26 Nickel (ˈnɪkəl is a metallic Chemical element with the symbol Ni and Atomic number 28 An alloy is a Solid solution or Homogeneous mixture of two or more elements, at least one of which is a Metal, which itself has Kamacite is a Mineral. It is an Alloy of Iron and Nickel, usually in the proportions of 9010 to 955 although impurities such as Cobalt Taenite ( Fe, Ni) is a Mineral found naturally on Earth mostly in Iron meteorites It is an Alloy of Iron and Nickel 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. For the Artificial intelligence Androids of the 1990s Science fiction series Space Above and Beyond, see Silicate (AI One type, called pallasites, is thought to have originated in the boundary zone above the core regions where iron meteorites originated. A pallasite is a type of stony-iron Meteorite. It consists of cm-sized Olivine crystals of Peridot quality in an iron- Nickel matrix The other major type of stony-iron meteorites is the mesosiderites. Mesosiderites are a class of stony-iron meteorites consisting of about equal parts of metallic nickeliron and silicate

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. Tektites (from Greek tektos, molten are natural Glass objects up to a few centimeters in size which most scientists argue were formed by the impact of 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

Most meteorite 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. Meteorite falls are those Meteorites that were witnessed by people or automated devices as they moved through the atmosphere or hit the Earth and were subsequently collected 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 Pribram meteorite, which fell in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1959. Příbram (ˈpr̝̊iːbram Pibrans earlier Freiberg in Böhmen) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic with a population of 35147 Czechoslovakia may also refer to what is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic ( ˈt͡ʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka short form in Česko ˈt͡ʃɛskɔ also called Czechia, ^[13] 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. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO is a "research institute" of the Smithsonian Institution headquartered in Cambridge Massachusetts, This program also observed a meteorite fall, the Lost City chondrite, allowing its recovery and a calculation of its orbit. ^[14] Another program in Canada, the Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project, ran from 1971 to 1985. It too recovered a single meteorite, Innisfree, in 1977. ^[15] 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. Neuschwanstein Castle ( German: Schloss Neuschwanstein, lit New Swan Stone palace; nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪ̯n is a 19th-century Bavarian ^[16]

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. Nininger that meteorites are much more common on the surface of the Earth than was previously thought. Harvey Harlow Nininger ( 1887 - 1986) American Meteorite collector self-taught Meteoriticist and Educator, revived interest in the EARTH was a short-lived Japanese vocal trio which released 6 singles and 1 album between 2000 and 2001

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. The Great Plains are the broad expanse of Prairie and Steppe which lie east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada 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. ^[17]

In the late 1960s, Roosevelt County, New Mexico in the Great Plains was found to be a particularly good place to find meteorites. Roosevelt County is a County located in the US state of New Mexico. 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. In Soil science, Agriculture and Gardening, hardpan is a general term for a dense layer of Soil, residing usually below the uppermost During the dustbowl era, the loose soil was blown off, leaving any rocks and meteorites that were present stranded on the exposed surface. The Dust Bowl, or the dirty thirties, was a period of severe Dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and ^[18]

Antarctica

A few meteorites had been found by field parties in Antarctica between 1912 and 1964. Then in 1969, the 10th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found nine meteorites on a blue ice field near the Yamato Mountains. Queen Fabiola Mountains ( is a group of Mountains in Antarctica, 30 miles long consisting mainly of seven small massifs which trend north-south forming a partial 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. The three largest mountain ranges on the Antarctic continent are the Transantarctic Mountains, the West Antarctica Ranges, and the East Antarctica Ranges. ANSMET ( AN tarctic S earch for MET eorites is a program funded by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation that looks for 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. More recently, a Chinese program, the Antarctic Scientific Exploration of China, has conducted highly successful meteorite searches since the year 2000. A Korean program (KOREAMET) was launched in 2007, and has collected a few meteorites ^[19]. The combined efforts of all of these expeditions have produced over 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). ^[20]

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. Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country Systematic searches between about 1971 and the present recovered over 500 more^[21], ~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. Limestone is a Sedimentary rock composed largely of the Mineral Calcite ( Calcium carbonate: CaCO3 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. Weathering is the decomposition of earth rocks, Soils and their Minerals through direct contact with the planet's Atmosphere. Sedimentation describes the motion of Molecules in Solutions or particles in suspensions in response to an external force such as gravity 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. Libya ( ليبيا ar-Latn Lībiyā; Libyan vernacular: Lībya; Amazigh:) officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab 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 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. A desert is a Landscape or region that receives very little precipitation. A hamada ( Arabic, حمادة ḥammāda) is a type of ^[22] Dark-colored meteorites can be easily spotted in these places, where they have also been well-preserved due to the arid climate.

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 profitibility 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. Morocco (المغرب "al-Maghrib" officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية is a country located in North Africa 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.

Oman

In 1999, meteorite hunters discovered that the desert in southern and central Oman were also favorable for the collection of many specimens. Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman ( Arabic: سلطنة عُمان) is an Arab Country in Southwest Asia on the southeast 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 2,000 meteorites as of mid-2006. The Dhofar ( Arabic ظفار Ẓufār) region lies in Southern Oman, on the eastern border of Yemen. al-Wusta or al-Awsad (الوسطى، الاوسط‎ the central) may refer to Al Wusta Region (Bahrain Al Wusta Region The Rub' al Khali ( Arabic: الربع الخالي which translates as Empty Quarter in English, is one of the largest sand Deserts in the Included among these are a large number of lunar and Martian meteorites, making Oman a particularly important area both for scientists and collectors. A Lunar meteorite is a Meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon. A Mars meteorite is a Meteorite that has landed on Earth and originated from Mars. 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 American Southwest

Beginning in the mid-1990s, amateur meteorite hunters began scouring the arid areas of the southwestern United States. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. To date, meteorites numbering possibly into the thousands have been recovered from the Mojave, Sonora, Tule, and Lechuguilla Deserts, with many being recovered on dry lake beds (playas). For the indigenous American tribe see Mohave. The Mojave Desert (moʊˈhɑːvi or /məˈhɑːvi/ ( Hayikwiir Mat'aar in Mojave Sonora is one of the 31 federal states of Mexico and is located in the northwest of the country The Tule ( Schoenoplectus acutus, syn Scirpus acutus Schoenoplectus lacustris Scirpus lacustris subsp Lechuguilla ( Agave lechuguilla) is an Agave found only in the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts almost always on Limestone. Significant finds include the Superior Valley 014 Acapulcoite, one of two of its type found within the United States^[23][24] as well as the Blue Eagle meteorite, the first Rumuruti-type chondrite yet found in the Americas. ^[25] Perhaps the most notable find in recent years has been the Los Angeles meteorite, a martian meteorite of unknown origin that was supposedly found somewhere in the Mojave desert. ^[26] 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 'poaching' by other hunters. Several of the meteorites found recently are currently on display in the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Griffith Observatory is located in Los Angeles California, United States. Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West

Meteorites in history

One of the leading theories for the cause of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event that included the dinosaurs is a large meteorite impact. The word theory has many distinct meanings in different fields of Knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, which occurred approximately ( Ma) was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species in a geologically The Chicxulub Crater has been identified as the site of this impact. The Chicxulub Crater (tʃikʃuˈlub is an ancient Impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. 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 Permian–Triassic (P–Tr extinction event, informally known as the Great Dying, was an Extinction event that occurred, and 70 percent of terrestrial Tollmann's hypothetical bolide is one such meteorite that some speculate had a major impact on world wide geology, although there is no direct evidence that any such meteorite ever existed. Alexander Tollmann's bolide, proposed by Kristen-Tollmann and Tollmann (1994 is a hypothesis presented by Austrian Geologist Dr

A famous case is the alleged Chinguetti meteorite, a find reputed to come from a large unconfirmed 'iron mountain' in Africa. The Willamette Meteorite, officially named Willamette, is an Iron-nickel meteorite discovered in the U The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Chinguetti meteorite is a find reputed to come from a large unconfirmed 'iron mountain' in Africa

There are several reported instances of falling meteorites having killed both 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 particular meteorite fall was identified in the 1980s as Martian 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. Events 1700 - Battle of Narva — A Swedish army of 8500 men under Charles XII defeats Year 1954 ( MCMLIV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar) Sylacauga is a city in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. ^[27] There a 4 kg stone chondrite^[28] crashed through a roof and hit Ann Hodges in her living room after it bounced off her radio. The Hodges Meteorite is the only documented extraterrestrial object to have struck a Human being. Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. She was badly bruised.

Other than the Sylacauga event, the most plausible of these claims 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. For other uses of the words gram or gramme see Gram (disambiguation. The Republic of Uganda is a Landlocked country in East Africa. 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. Friction is the Force resisting the relative motion of two Surfaces in contact or a surface in contact with a fluid (e Although it is impossible to prove this claim either way, it seems as though he had little reason to lie about such an event occurring.

Several persons have since claimed^[29] to have been struck by "meteorites" but no verifiable meteorites have resulted.

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 Cape York meteorite which collided with Earth nearly 10000 years ago is named for Cape York, the location of its discovery in Greenland, and is one of the largest

Other Native Americans treated meteorites as ceremonial objects. In 1915, a 135-pound iron meteorite was found in a Sinagua (c. The Sinagua were a Pre-Columbian cultural group occupying an area in central Arizona between the Little Colorado River and the Salt River 1100-1200 AD) burial cyst near Camp Verde, Arizona, respectfully wrapped in a feather cloth. Camp Verde ( Western Apache: Gambúdih) is a town in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. ^[30] A small pallasite was found in a pottery jar in an old burial found at Pojoaque Pueblo, New Mexico. Pojoaque ( Tewa: Posunwange, pəˈwɑːki is a Census-designated place (CDP in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States New Mexico ( is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States of America. Nininger reports several other such instances, in the Southwest US and elsewhere.

Notable meteorites

• Allan Hills 84001 - Mars meteorite that was claimed to prove the existence of life on Mars. ALH 84001 (full name Allan Hills 84001) is a Meteorite found in Allan Hills, Antarctica in December 1984 by a team of US meteorite hunters from A Mars meteorite is a Meteorite that has landed on Earth and originated from Mars. Life is a state that distinguishes Organisms from non-living objects such as non-life and dead organisms being manifested by growth through Metabolism
• Canyon Diablo - Iron meteorite used by pre-historic Native Americans. Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States
• Cape York - One of the largest meteorites in the world. The Cape York meteorite which collided with Earth nearly 10000 years ago is named for Cape York, the location of its discovery in Greenland, and is one of the largest A 34 ton fragment called "Ahnighito", is exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History; the largest meteorite on exhibit in any museum. The American Museum of Natural History ( AMNH) located on the Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York, USA is one of the largest and most
• Ensisheim meteorite - The oldest meteorite whose fall can be dated precisely (to November 7, 1492, at Ensisheim)
• Hoba - The largest known meteorite. Events 1492 - The Ensisheim Meteorite the oldest Meteorite with a known date of impact strikes the Earth around noon in a Wheat Ensisheim is a town in Alsace, France. On November 7, 1492, a 250 pound Meteorite fell there and since then it has attracted Hoba (as a single piece and the most massive naturally-occurring piece of Iron known at the Earth's surface
• Kaidun - Possibly from the martian moon Phobos. The Kaidun meteorite is a Meteorite that fell on March 12, 1980 on a Soviet Military base (lat Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are thought to be captured Asteroids If viewed from the surface
• Orgueil - Object of a 1965 hoax that involved embedding a seed within part of the meteorite. A seed (in some plants referred to as a kernel) is a small embryonic Plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat usually with some stored
• Murchison - A carbonaceous chondrite found to contain nucleobases - the building block of life. The Murchison meteorite is named after Murchison Victoria, in Australia. Carbonaceous is the defining attribute of a substance rich in Carbon. Chondrites are stony Meteorites that have not been modified due to Melting or Differentiation of the parent body Structure The "skeleton" of adenine
• Sayh al Uhaymir 169 - Originated from the moon; it fell to earth as a result of meteoroid strikes on the moon. Sayh al Uhaymir 169 (SaU 169 is a 206g lunar Meteorite found in the Sayh al Uhaymir region of the Sultanate of Oman in January 2002.
• Sikhote-Alin - Massive iron meteorite impact event that occurred on February 12, 1947. Sikhote-Alin is an iron Meteorite fell in 1947 on the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in ( Russia) See also Impact crater An impact event is the Collision of a large Meteoroid, Asteroid or Comet (generically Events 1429 - English Forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orleans from attack by the Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
• Willamette - The largest meteorite ever found in the United States. The Willamette Meteorite, officially named Willamette, is an Iron-nickel meteorite discovered in the U The United States of America —commonly referred to as the
• 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]
• Heat Shield Rock - Found on Mars. The Black Stone (called الحجر الأسود al-Hajar-ul-Aswad in Arabic) is a Muslim object of reverence which according to Islamic The Kaaba ( Arabic: ar الكعبة; 'kɑʕbɑ or 'kæʕbæ "Cube" is a Cuboidal building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the Mecca ˈmɛkə also spelled Makkah ˈmækə (in full Makkah Al-Mukarramah (Arabic mækːæ(t ælmʊkarˑamæ مكّة المكرمة, literally Honored Heat Shield Rock is a Basketball -sized Iron-nickel meteorite found on Mars by the Mars rover Opportunity in January 2005
• The Peruvian meteorite event - After a meteorite impact in Peru in 2007, hundreds of people that approached the rock fell ill from arsenic poisoning. The Carancas impact event occurred when the Carancas Meteorite fell on September 15, 2007. Peru (Perú Piruw Piruw officially the Republic of Peru ( reˈpuβlika del peˈɾu is a country in western South America. Arsenic Poisoning kills by Allosteric inhibition of essential metabolic Enzymes, leading to death from multi-system

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. Heat Shield Rock is a Basketball -sized Iron-nickel meteorite found on Mars by the Mars rover Opportunity in January 2005 ^[32]

Notable meteorite impacts craters

• Vredefort Crater in South Africa, the largest known impact crater on Earth (300 km diameter from an estimated 10 km wide meteorite). Vredefort crater is the largest verified Impact crater on Earth.
• Sudbury Basin in Ontario, Canada (250 km diameter). The Sudbury Basin, also known as Sudbury Structure or the Sudbury Nickel Irruptive, is the second largest known Impact crater or Astrobleme
• Chicxulub Crater off the coast of Yucatán (170 km diameter) thought to be the source of the K-T Boundary which marks the end of the Mesozoic Era and existence of Dinosaurs. The Chicxulub Crater (tʃikʃuˈlub is an ancient Impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Yucatán is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located on the north of the Yucatán Peninsula. The K-T boundary is a geological signature usually a thin band dated to 65 The Mesozoic Era is one of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon.
• Manicouagan Reservoir in Québec, Canada (100 km diameter)
• Popigai crater in Russia (100 km diameter)
• Acraman crater in South Australia (90 km diameter)
• Chesapeake Bay impact crater (90 km diameter)
• Mjølnir impact crater in the Barents Sea (40 km diameter)
• Manson crater in Iowa (38 km crater is buried)
• Clearwater Lakes a double crater impact in Québec, Canada. Manicouagan Reservoir (also Lake Manicouagan) is an annular lake in central Quebec, Canada. The Popigai crater in Siberia, Russia is tied with Manicouagan Reservoir as the 4th largest Impact crater on Earth. Acraman x10jpg|thumb|right|200px|Oblique Landsat image of Lake Acraman drapped over digital elevation model (10x vertical exaggeration looking east towards the Flinders Ranges where ejecta has The Chesapeake Bay impact crater was formed by a Bolide that impacted the eastern shore of North America about 35 Mjølnir is a Meteorite crater on the floor of Barents Sea off the coast of Norway. The Barents Sea (Barentshavet Баренцево море is a part of the Arctic Ocean located north of Norway and Russia. See also Iowa geology The Manson Impact crater is near the site of Manson Iowa where an asteroid or comet nucleus struck the Earth during the The Clearwater Lakes (officially known by the French name Lac à l'Eau Claire; the Cree call them Wiyasakami and the Inuit
• Barringer crater in Arizona, also known as 'Meteor Crater' (1. Meteor Crater is a Meteorite Impact crater located approximately 43 miles east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern The State of Arizona ( is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. 2 km diameter)

Notable disintegrating meteoroids

• Tunguska event in Siberia 1908 (no crater)
• Vitim event in Siberia 2002 (no crater)

Meteorite-related news

• At approximately 12 pm local time on 15 September 2007 a meteorite left a 30m-wide crater near Desaguadero, Peru, emitting fumes that reportedly made witnesses ill. The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful Explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony Tunguska River in what is now Siberia (Сиби́рь Sibir) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving The Vitim event or Bodaybo event is believed to be an impact by a Bolide or Comet nucleus in the Vitim River basin Events 668 - Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse Italy. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Peru (Perú Piruw Piruw officially the Republic of Peru ( reˈpuβlika del peˈɾu is a country in western South America. [1] But a team of doctors sent to the site said they found no evidence the meteorite had sickened people, the Lima newspaper El Comercio reported Semptemeber 19, 2007. [2]
• Soon after 2 am local time (00:00 GMT) on 7 June 2006: on a mountainside in Reisadalen in North Troms in Norway, a bolide was observed by several residents, possibly followed by an impact. Events 1099 - The First Crusade: The Siege of Jerusalem begins Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. or Romsa ( Sami language) is a county in North Norway, bordering Finnmark to the northeast and Nordland in the southwest Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional There is a question as to how large it was, but an associated explosion was heard throughout the region. [3]
• On 12 June 2006, NASA reported that two rocks dubbed "Allan Hills," and "Zhong Shan," found by the Spirit rover on Mars, might be iron meteorites. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA, ˈnæsə is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program Unlike in the case of "Heat Shield Rock," there are not yet any supporting compositional data for these objects, so their identities as meteorites are less certain [4]. Heat Shield Rock is a Basketball -sized Iron-nickel meteorite found on Mars by the Mars rover Opportunity in January 2005
• Freehold Township, New Jersey object that crashed through a home's roof January 2, 2007 is space junk and not a meteorite. Also see Freehold Borough. Freehold Township is a Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States New Jersey ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. Events 366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers invading the Roman Empire. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste are the objects in Orbit around Earth created by humans that no See article following. http://www.space.com/news/ap_070511_freehold_spacejunk.html

See also

• Atmospheric focusing
• Baetylus
• Center for Meteorite Studies
• Carbonaceous chondrite
• Geminids
• Impact depth
• Impact event
• Lake Siljan
• Leonids
• Meteor
• Meteor shower
• Meteoritical Society
• Solar System
• Vatican Observatory
• Temagami Magnetic Anomaly

References

External links

• Meteoroids Page at NASA's Solar System Exploration
• Current Meteorite News Articles
• Meteorite Community Site For Meteorite Hunters, Adventurers, Enthusiasts, & Scientists
• Planetary Science Research Discoveries: meteorite articles and photographs
• Meteorite hit
• Interview with Guy Consolmagno at Astrobiology Magazine (May 12, 2004). Vatican astronomer Dr. Guy Consolmagno discussed his research as curator of one of the world's largest meteorite collections
• The British and Irish Meteorite Society
• Largest meteorites
• Meteorite Times, the premier source for news and information about meteorite collecting
• The Natural History Museum's Meteorite Catalogue Database
• Meteoritical Society

Brother Guy J Consolmagno, SJ (born September 19 1952 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American research Astronomer

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