Meteorite

Meteors, sometimes nicknamed shooting stars or falling stars, are space rocks and other materials that burn up as they plummet through Earth’s atmosphere, leaving behind bright streaks in the sky. Have you ever seen one? Occasionally, meteors become meteorites when they don’t burn up completely and hit Earth, which happens, according to the American Meteor Society, an average of 17 times each day!

 

This is a Gibeon meteorite, found in Namibia and named for the town closest to the meteorite field. Like many meteorites, this specimen is made up mostly of iron and nickel. Gibeon meteorites resulted from a huge meteor shower that occurred thousands of years ago. Upon hitting the Earth’s atmosphere, a large iron mass (or masses) fragmented, showering smaller pieces like this one down to earth. It is not known exactly when this fell, as there are no records of this event stretching so far back in history, but chemical studies of the meteorite itself tell us it formed over 4.5 billion years ago, around the same time as the solar system itself!