A
meteorite is a fragment of rock or iron from outer space,
usually a meteoroid or asteroid, which survives
passage through the atmosphere as a meteor to impact the surface of the Earth.
Meteorites are believed to originate in the asteroid belt between the planets of Mars and Jupiter.
A meteorite may range in size from less than a gram to more than 60 tons.

When the path of these space rocks intersects with Earth's orbit,
the meteoroid enters the atmosphere at high velocity causing the
luminous phenomena we call a meteor or shooting star. These meteors
should not be confused with a
meteor
shower. Meteor showers involve the Earth passing through a comets
orbit.
A very bright meteor is called a fireball and may be called a bolide
if associated with a smoke train and detonations (which often produces
meteorites). These events can also be tremendous force of nature.
The recent
Russian
meteor sonic boom and shock wave on February 15, 2013 caused
considerable property damage and injury to people.
Sometimes the forces on these objects are too great and fragmentation
will occur resulting in a few to even many thousands of individual
pieces. The area on the ground surface meteorites cover is a distribution
ellipse also know as a strewnfield.
As the meteoroid passes through the atmosphere, ablation occurs
where melting and vaporization removes material from the surface.
This ablation can also produce regmaglyphs which are flight marks produced during the passage
of a meteoroid through the atmosphere and often look like thumbprints
pushed into the surface. This melting of the exterior surface from
heating due to it's high velocity through Earth's atmosphere is
also what causes the fusion crust seen on the exterior of meteorites. These factors help us with
meteorite identification because the exterior features of space rocks are different from that of Earth rocks.

An
oriented meteorite is formed when it's passage through the atmosphere
is in a stable orientation. It receives the characteristic ablation
features from being melted mostly on one surface. Among these features
are a rounded front surface or a cone shape and often
radial lines of melting in the front surface, and a rolled over
lip of melted material which has cooled around the circumference
of the back side.
On
very rare occasions large meteoroids will reach the ground with
enough velocity and mass to form an impact crater. The best preserved
impact crater today is
Meteor Crater in
Arizona. Associated with impact structures and craters is a
type of rock called an impactite. This
glassy rock, also called
crater glass, is formed from the melting of native rocks during
the impact of asteroids. A second glassy object associated with
impact events but much less understood are tektites. A
tektite is a natural glass object formed by the melting of native
rocks during some asteroid impacts. Some tektites, the Australites,
receive aerodynamic shapes as the still plastic but cooling glass
falls back to the surface from very high altitude.
Muong Nong tektite glass may be from a melt sheet formed near
the impact site.
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