Meteorite
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. A meteorite's size can range from small to extremely large. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids. When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, frictional, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gasses cause the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting/falling star. The term bolide refers to either an extraterrestrial body that collides with the Earth, or to an exceptionally bright, fireball-like meteor regardless of whether it ultimately impacts the surface.
See also
- List of meteorite minerals
- Atmospheric focusing, shockwave produced in the atmosphere by a meteor or other cause
- Baetylus, a Semitic word denoting a sacred stone (often a meteorite)
- Carbonaceous chondrite, a class of chondritic meteorites comprising at least seven known groups and many ungrouped
- Carbonado, commonly known as "black diamond," is hypothesized to be of extraterrestrial origin
- Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University
- Geminids, a recurring meteor shower caused by an object named 3200 Phaethon
- Impact depth of projectiles traveling at high speed
- Impact event, the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with a planet
- Lake Siljan, an impact crater in Sweden
- Leonids, a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle
- Meteor shower
- Meteorite classification
- Meteoritical Society, scholarly organization specializing in meteorites
- Near Earth Object
- Neenach Meteorite, Los Angeles County, California
- Solar System
- The British and Irish Meteorite Society
- Temagami Magnetic Anomaly, a large buried geologic structure in the Canadian Shield
- Vatican Observatory
