What is a meteorite made of?
In various space documentaries you will certainly hear the term meteorites again and again and that these can cause great devastation if they hit the earth. Therefore the question arose what a meteorite is made of and what it actually is.
Explanation of terms meteorite
A meteorite is created in the solar system. Therefore, scientists can glean a lot of useful and interesting data from the early days of the universe. This is one of the reasons why it is so mysterious. The term meteor is derived from the Greek and means "lifted up", which means something like "high in the air". Most meteorites are broken pieces from an asteroid belt. Since many boulders fly through space at high speeds, it happens occasionally Collapse and this creates the meteorites, the splinters from the collided bodies represent.
Physical components that make up a meteorite
- There are different types. Depending on the species, different chemical elements are responsible for what it ultimately consists of. Science calls the most frequently found meteorites "undifferentiated" meteorites. These consist of the heavy chemical elements. That is why they are also counted among the so-called "stone meteorites".
- The second group, the so-called "differentiated" meteorites, can in turn be divided into two branches, namely into non-chondritic stone meteorites and iron meteorites. As the name suggests, the former consist of rocks; The second, whose name also almost reveals what it is made of, made of a mixed alloy of iron and nickel.
Interesting data on meteorites
Every year more meteorites are observed entering the earth's atmosphere. For example, only 4.4 observations were counted between 1970 and 1979; From 2000 to 2009 the absolute number rose to 5.5 observations per year.
