The Meteorites

The Meteorites

¿What are meteorites?

Meteorites are remains of celestial bodies that impact Earth or any other star. These fragments reach the surface since, when crossing the atmosphere, they do not disintegrate completely.

Characteristisc of meteorites

The main characteristics of meteorites are as follows:

• They are irregularly shaped masses, can be angular or square, and generally have rounded corners.
• Some will be marked on its surface with pits that are commonly called fingerprints.
• Iron in meteorites is always alloyed with nickel.
• Sometimes the number of falling meteorites increases dramatically, and these events are called meteor showers.
• Those found on Earth are about the size of a fist, but some are larger than a building.
• The word meteor means "sky phenomenon" and is used to describe the light produced when a fragment of matter from space enters the atmosphere.
• Achieve entering the atmosphere at an average speed of around 10 and 70 km / s.

Types of meteorite

There are three basic types of meteorites: iron, stone, and stone irons. Each of them is explained below.

• Iron or metallic meteorites: formed of solid nickel iron. Due to the strength of iron, most of the individual meteorites are iron and many of the craters were formed by this type of meteorite. They show a pattern when engraved with chemicals due to the different nickel iron minerals that make them up.
• Stony meteorites: they are made almost entirely of stone and are the most common, around 10% of them fall to the ground. Within this group we can find, for example, stone meteorites, chondrites, achondrites and planetary meteorites that are also achondrites but have unique origins.
• Stony-metallic meteorites: they are formed from a mixture of iron, nickel and some silicate minerals. They are divided into two groups, pallasitas and mesosideritas.