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A meteorite is a portion of a meteoroid or asteroid that survives its passage through the atmosphere and hits the ground without being destroyed. [77] Meteorites are sometimes, but not always, found in association with hypervelocity impact craters; during energetic collisions, the entire impactor may be vaporized, leaving no meteorites.
Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater. [2] Meteorites that are recovered after being observed as they transit the atmosphere and impact Earth are called meteorite falls.
Meteoritics [note 1] is the science that deals with meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids. [note 2] [2] [3] It is closely connected to cosmochemistry, mineralogy and geochemistry. A specialist who studies meteoritics is known as a meteoriticist. [4]
Achondrite – a differentiated meteorite (meaning without chondrules). Aerolite – an old term for stony meteorites. ALH – an abbreviation used for meteorites from Allan Hills. Allan Hills 84001 – is an exotic meteorite from Mars that does not fit into any of the SNC groups and was thought to contain evidence for life on Mars.
Those resulting fireballs, better known as "shooting stars," are meteors. If meteoroids survive their trip to Earth without burning up in the atmosphere, they are called meteorites, NASA says ...
Bolide from the French astronomy book Le Ciel; Notions 'Elémentaires d'Astronomie Physique (1877). The word bolide (/ ˈ b oʊ l aɪ d /; from Italian via Latin, from Ancient Greek βολίς (bolís) 'missile' [2] [3]) may refer to somewhat different phenomena depending on the context in which the word appears, and readers may need to make inferences to determine which meaning is intended in ...
Meteors: When meteoroids survive Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet, like Mars) and burn up, the fireballs or "shooting stars" are called meteors. Meteorites When a meteoroid survives a ...
Fred Lawrence Whipple first coined the term "micro-meteorite" to describe dust-sized objects that fall to the Earth. [4] Sometimes meteoroids and micrometeoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere are visible as meteors or "shooting stars", whether or not they reach the ground and survive as meteorites and micrometeorites.