Meteorites – Facts Versus Myths

A meteorite is an object naturally formed and originating in space that survives impact with the surface of the Earth. Meteorites can be different shapes and sizes, varying from small to big. There are quite a few meteorites gleaned from tiny astronomical objects called meteoroids, but almost all of the time they are produced by hits of other asteroids. When a meteoroid enters the earth’s atmosphere or finds itself in the earth’s gravitational field, ram pressure causes that object to catch fire because of the attraction of the earth’s gravitational pull. At that point, meteorites begin giving out light as it forms a ” fireball” because of the fire on its outer surface. This type of meteor is known as falling star.

Meteorites that are observed and discovered after they impacted the Earth are called falls. All other meteorites are known as finds. As specified in the report of Feb 2010, there are about 1,086 viewed falls, residing in the world’s collections. By direct contrast, there could be over 38,660 documented meteorite finds.

Meteorites are typically broken up into three (3) main areas: (1) stony meteorites composed of rocky and hard materials; (2) iron meteorites made up of metallic iron and once-in-a-while a modest bit of nickel and also; (3) stony-iron meteorites are made up of both metallic and rocky material. Modern categorization systems divide meteorites into groups according to their structure, attributes, chemical properties, isotopic composition and mineralogy. Almost all of the meteorites are in hard meteorites family and about 6% of the falling meteorites are in the iron and stony-iron category.

Nearly all of the meteoroids break apart into small-sized chunks when enter into the earth’s atmosphere. It is ascertained that about 500 meteoroids strike the earth’s surface each and every year – having different sizes that vary from the size of marbles to basket balls or perchance bigger – with not many of these being documented as recovered. There have been a few meteorites that are so behemoth and of such size, that striking the outer surface of the earth, with their terminal speed, form pits on the surface of earth and can infrequently destroy public property which might end up in injury or loss of life.

Dr. H.H. (Harvey Harlow) Nininger began a method for the search of meteorites in the great plains of the States in the late 1920′s to 1950′s. He travelled in the chosen area and educated the local citizenry about the features of the meteorites, identification and what to do if one found it. The technique was extremely successful and this enabled them to discover more than two hundred new meteorites. The majority of newly discovered meteorites are of the hard type. In the late 1960s, Roosevelt County , New Mexico in the Great Plains region was selected for finding new meteorites. 140 meteorites have been found in the area since 1967. Intriguingly, numerous meteorites were spotted in Antarctica between 1912 and 1964. This discovery has impassioned the search for more meteorites in Antarctica. In 1969, the 10th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found some meteorites in Antarctica. Another Japanese Antarctica expedition was launched in 1974 for the search of more meteorites with smashing success. This team succeeded to recover just about seven hundred meteorites while there. One or two dozen meteorites have also been found in the Nullarbor location of Western and Southern Australia before 1971.

Tom is a key contributor to the base knowledge, as well as, to the progress and expansion of Satellite Treasure Map Data overlaid on Google Maps. Tom has accumulated this information thru many years of seeking out secret truths through many wide-ranging sources.