All About Meteorites

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I have spoken to a lot of people about astronomy over the years and one of the most common requests has been to know all about meteorites. As a topic, meteorites can be quite an engrossing topic and can cover a wide array of information. Anywhere from impact events to light shows as they bounce off of or burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. After some discussion, a common questions is about the differences between meteorites an asteroids. To cover as many bases as possible, here is a page full of links to articles, all about meteorite, that, hopefully, will sate your thirst for knowledge on the subject.

Of course, we do not expect you to jump blindly into the links, so here are a few interesting facts about meteorites to help you motivate yourself to click link after link.

A meteorite is any natural object that originates outside of the Earth’s atmosphere and survives impact with the Earth’s surface. In that respect asteroid and meteorite are often used interchangeably.

There are commonly three different classes of meteorites.

Many of the claims for life on Mars stem from examination of a meteorite found in the Antarctic. So much controversy from a lump of rock the size of a football.

The Martian rover Opportunity seems to stumble on a meteorite at every turn.

It is believed that in the future the only way to mine some minerals will be to land on asteroids and extract them. I wonder how many meteorites would be created during the mining process?

There is one 60 km² area in Argentina where there are 26 different impact craters and each has yielded a meteorite. Scientists think that these are all fragments of one larger meteorite that may have weighed 100 tons before breaking apart above the Earth’s surface.

Many impact large impact craters have become sources of minerals and are still actively mined in countries around the globe.

These are just a few snippets of information that you can find in the links below. There is plenty of fodder for your report or to satisfy your lust for knowledge. Hopefully, you will find what you are looking for and, as always, enjoy your research.

• Where Do Meteorites Come From?
• Pictures of Canadian Meteorite
• Arizona Crater
• The Barringer Crater
• Meteors Hitting Earth
• Campo del Cielo
• Meteor Crater
• Meteor Impact
• Meteorite
• Meteorites
• ALH84001
• Meteorite Impact
• Meteorite Pictures
• Pictures of Meteorites
• Meteorites Pictures
• Meteorite Photos
• What is a Meteorite?
• Pallasite
• Lunar Meteorites
• Types of Meteorites
• Gibeon Meteorite
• Sikhote Alin Meteorite
• How to Identify a Meteorite