Once thought to be a sign of impending doom, most meteorites are debris left by a comet or asteroid that is orbiting the sun, but some come from the Moon or Mars.
The Murchison meteorite, which fell to earth near Murchison, Victoria, in Australia, in 1969 contains silicon carbide particles formed five to seven billion years ago. They are the oldest solid material found on Earth to date.
One of the two daggers buried with King Tutankhamen was made out of meteorite.
In 1961, the International Astronomical Union defined a meteoroid as "a solid object moving in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom".
Most of these extra terrestrial objects burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. Only the 500 that reach the ground annually are known as meteorites.
The Ensisheim Meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, struck the earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France on November 7, 1492. The fall of the meteorite through the Earth's atmosphere was observed as a fireball for a distance of up to 93 miles (150 kms) from where it eventually landed. The meteorite can still be seen in Ensisheim's museum, the sixteenth-century Musée de la Régence.
The Hodges Meteorite crashed through a roof of a home in Sylacauga, Alabama, United States on November 30, 1954. It hit Ann Hodges who was taking an afternoon nap, striking her on the thigh, leaving a huge pineapple-shaped bruise. The event was the only documented case of a human being hit by a rock from space.
The Murchison meteorite, which fell to earth near Murchison, Victoria, in Australia, in 1969 contains silicon carbide particles formed five to seven billion years ago. They are the oldest solid material found on Earth to date.
One of the two daggers buried with King Tutankhamen was made out of meteorite.
In 1961, the International Astronomical Union defined a meteoroid as "a solid object moving in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom".
Most of these extra terrestrial objects burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. Only the 500 that reach the ground annually are known as meteorites.
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| Meteorite fragments found on February 28, 2009, in the Nubian Desert, Sudan |
The Ensisheim Meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, struck the earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France on November 7, 1492. The fall of the meteorite through the Earth's atmosphere was observed as a fireball for a distance of up to 93 miles (150 kms) from where it eventually landed. The meteorite can still be seen in Ensisheim's museum, the sixteenth-century Musée de la Régence.
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| Mainmass of the Ensisheim meteorite. By Konrad Andrä - Wikipedia |
The Hodges Meteorite crashed through a roof of a home in Sylacauga, Alabama, United States on November 30, 1954. It hit Ann Hodges who was taking an afternoon nap, striking her on the thigh, leaving a huge pineapple-shaped bruise. The event was the only documented case of a human being hit by a rock from space.
On August 7, 1996, a team of researchers led by David S. McKay of NASA's Johnson Space Center announced that they had found evidence of life on Mars in the meteorite ALH84001. The meteorite was discovered in the Allan Hills of Antarctica in 1984 and was determined to be of Martian origin in 1993.
However, other scientists disputed the claims of the McKay team. They argued that the features in ALH84001 could have been formed by non-biological processes. The wider scientific community ultimately rejected the hypothesis once all the unusual features in the meteorite had been explained without requiring life to be present.
A meteorite impact in Peru in 2007 caused a "mystery illness" that turned out to be widespread arsenic poisoning from the meteorite evaporating contaminated groundwater.
A French family had a roof leak in 2011. Upon inspection, the culprit turned out to be a 4.5 billion year old meteorite that had smashed through their roof tile. The French family's name is fittingly Commette.
The largest individual meteorite ever found is the Hoba meteorite in southwest Africa, which has a mass of about 54,000 kg and mostly consists of iron.
The town of Nordlingen in Germany was built unknowingly in a meteorite crater. It's stone buildings contain thousands of tons of micro-diamonds.
Earth is hit by six tons of meteorites every day.
Peridots are the only gems that have been found in meteorites.
Source Daily Mail
A French family had a roof leak in 2011. Upon inspection, the culprit turned out to be a 4.5 billion year old meteorite that had smashed through their roof tile. The French family's name is fittingly Commette.
The largest individual meteorite ever found is the Hoba meteorite in southwest Africa, which has a mass of about 54,000 kg and mostly consists of iron.
The town of Nordlingen in Germany was built unknowingly in a meteorite crater. It's stone buildings contain thousands of tons of micro-diamonds.
Earth is hit by six tons of meteorites every day.
Peridots are the only gems that have been found in meteorites.
Source Daily Mail
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