Buzz
Each day, our atmosphere faces an onslaught of extraterrestrial rocks. These cosmic travelers journey across billions of miles of desolate space, heading straight for Earth, where in a fleeting, magnificent moment, they are consumed by the upper atmosphere. However, occasionally, a meteorite arrives with the perfect combination of size and perseverance to strike the Earth. If it were more than a rock, it would understand that this marks an exciting event for those beneath.
10. A Long-Lost Mineral of Ancient Origins
The Krotite meteorite was found in Morocco in 1934, earning the designation 'NWA 1934.' This small rock lacked obvious features, but one mystery remained: no one could determine its composition. It wasn’t until 2010 that scientists concluded the meteorite contained an entirely new mineral that had never been discovered before.
The mineral was named 'krotite' after Alexander Krot, the cosmochemist who deciphered the rock’s chemical makeup. Interestingly, krotite shares striking similarities with several forms of man-made concrete, proving once again that nature often beats us to the punch. In this case, nature figured it out around 4.6 billion years ago—krotite is considered one of the oldest minerals, formed in the early days of the Solar System's formation.
9. A Nuke-Like Explosion From An Extraterrestrial World
Most meteorites break away from a larger parent body before entering our atmosphere. The Tagish Lake Meteoroid, however, made a dramatic plunge into the stratosphere before bursting apart with more energy than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The meteoroid was estimated to be 4 meters (13 feet) in diameter and weighed 56 metric tons, large enough to cause widespread devastation if it had landed intact.
Around 93 percent of the meteoroid was ablated, or vaporized, before it detonated into a fiery explosion. It burst approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) above the Earth’s surface, scattering thousands of meteorites across the frozen landscape of Tagish Lake in Canada. When NASA came to examine the fragments, they had to carve blocks of ice from the lake as the pieces were too deeply embedded to remove. The entire lake had been perforated. After analysis, it was found that these meteorites came from 773 Irmintraud, a minor planet (or large asteroid) located between Jupiter and Mars.
8. Unlocking the Secrets of Mars’s Past
Before 2005, all meteorites that had been studied came from Earth (with the exception of two from the Moon). We hadn’t ventured to other worlds. But a year after the Opportunity rover landed on Mars in 2004, it stumbled upon the first meteorite found on another planet. The discovery was accidental; the rover was searching for the heat shield discarded during its landing. Next to the shield lay a large, pockmarked iron sphere—the Heat Shield Rock.
Since the rover wasn’t designed to drill into a substance made almost entirely of iron, we haven’t had the chance to study it extensively. However, one thing is clear—given how it survived the fall intact, it must have been traveling at a relatively slow speed. For that to happen, Mars must have had a much thicker atmosphere at the time, one that contained water. This discovery brings us closer to understanding the timeline of Mars’s atmospheric changes, something we’ve never truly been able to track. All it took was a chunk of rock.
7. The Discovery of Liquid Water on Mars
Meteorites are typically ancient. These solid pieces of matter formed billions of years ago, and the ones that didn’t come together to form a planet became wanderers, drifting aimlessly through the cosmos. Take the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite (ALH84001), for instance. It is believed to be over 4 billion years old, a relic from the birth of our Solar System.
But it’s not just known for being one of the oldest objects in our vicinity. Found in Antarctica in 1984, ALH84001 underwent thorough analysis for eight years before scientists made a startling discovery: It was covered in carbonate globules, a potential sign of bacterial fossils. This was particularly curious given its origin from Mars. It’s thought that 15 million years ago, a meteorite impact sent this piece, along with a colony of Martian bacteria, into space. After drifting through the void, it collided with Earth around 13,000 years ago.
Although the idea of alien bacteria on the rock was later discredited by the scientific community, by 2011, it was confirmed that whether or not bacteria ever existed, the rock was undeniably formed in an environment with liquid water.
6. A Divine Sign
The Ensisheim meteorite is the oldest preserved meteorite known to exist. It made its way to Earth in 1492, landing in the small village of Ensisheim in eastern France. While the rock itself may seem unremarkable, it is classified as an ordinary chondrite, a type that is actually quite common. In fact, ordinary chondrites represent almost 90 percent of all meteorite finds.
However, in the 15th century, the Ensisheim meteorite caused a great deal of excitement. Descriptions from the time depict it as a massive fireball, visible from over 150 kilometers (93 miles) away. The locals quickly saw it as a message from the heavens, and the meteorite was swiftly excavated, transported to the town, and chained inside the Ensisheim church. Fragments of the meteorite were then sent to the Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Pius III, and it was even immortalized in songs and poems of the period.
5. The Monument of Iron
Weighing in at over 60 tons, the Hoba meteorite holds the title of the largest meteorite ever discovered. In fact, it’s also the largest single piece of iron known to man. Due to its immense size, it has remained in its original location, still resting on a farm near Grootfontein, Namibia.
The discovery of the Hoba meteorite was entirely by chance. One day, a Namibian farmer named Jacobus Brits was guiding his ox through a field when the plow unexpectedly stopped. Upon inspection, he found a large, flat, square rock buried in the earth. It wasn’t until later that he realized it was a meteorite. Given its flat shape, it’s believed that the meteorite skipped across the atmosphere’s surface several times, much like a pebble skipping across water, before finally crashing down. It likely hit the Earth around 80,000 years ago, barreling through the atmosphere at speeds of 300 meters per second (roughly 1,000 ft/s). Today, it stands as a national monument.
4. A Fortune that Destroys Cars
In 1992, residents of Pennsylvania witnessed a bright green object racing across the sky before crashing violently into the trunk of a Chevy Malibu. Aside from the meteorite that flared through Russia’s skies in 2013, the Peekskill meteorite, as it came to be known, holds the record for the most documented meteorite event ever. As it streaked across the sky during a high school football game, many parents abandoned their children to capture the event on video. Eventually, 16 videos of the meteorite’s descent surfaced.
The meteorite weighed in at 12 kilograms (26 lbs) and was an H6 monomict breccia, a rare type formed from the violent collision of two massive asteroids in space. The collision produced intense pressure and heat, resulting in the formation of this rock. Prior to entering the atmosphere, it was speeding through space at a blistering 14,000 meters (8.8 mi) per second. By the time it landed, just 40 seconds later, it had decelerated to a more modest speed of 200 kilometers (126 mi) per hour.
But what happened to the car? Well, the owner was able to buy a brand new one after selling the meteorite for a handsome $69,000.
3. The (Alleged) Cure for AIDS
On August 14, 1992, a meteor shower struck the village of Mbale, Uganda. The meteorite itself wasn’t anything extraordinary—just a typical ordinary chondrite, a large, unremarkable rock weighing 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lbs) that shattered into fragments upon impact. Unimpressive.
However, by the time researchers reached the site, there wasn’t much left for study—the local community had already ground most of the pieces into powder and consumed it. You see, at that time, Mbale was grappling with an AIDS epidemic sweeping through the population. In their desperation, they viewed the meteorite as a divine message and believed that within its cosmic makeup lay the cure for their affliction. They were ingesting the powder by the handful and mixing it with water to create a paste, which they then applied to their skin.
Sadly, the meteorite contained nothing more than chunks of iron, and AIDS continues to be a persistent issue in that region of Uganda today.
2. An Alien Killer
In October 1972, the first recorded meteorite fatality occurred in the tiny village of Trujillo, Venezuela. The victim? A dairy cow. No one actually witnessed the meteorite's descent, but the sound was unmistakable—a massive sonic boom caused by a meteor fragment exploding in the upper atmosphere.
The following morning, Argimiro Gonzalez, the farm’s owner, was roused by one of his farmhands. The man was rambling about lethal rocks, and upon investigating, Gonzalez found a bloody stone in one of his fields. Near it lay a cow, its shoulders and neck pulverized like the front end of a Chevy Malibu. The cow was quickly consumed, and Gonzalez kept the deadly rock as a doorstop for years until an astronomer examined it and identified it as part of the Valera meteorite that had exploded over Venezuela around that time.
You can now purchase the meteorite and own the only extraterrestrial object to claim the life of an Earthly creature on our planet.
1. Diamonds and the Seeds of Life
Currently, 28 powerful telescopes orbit Earth, with countless land-based observatories scattered globally and millions of amateur telescopes trained on the stars. The aim of all these efforts is clear: to observe space. However, until 2008, no one had ever seen a meteorite before it was already blazing through the atmosphere, visible to the naked eye. 2008 TC3 became the first meteorite tracked from space to Earth, and despite the advanced technology, the achievement came down to a hobbyist simply being in the right place at the right time.
Richard A. Kowalski spotted the asteroid a full 19 hours before it reached Earth. NASA quickly got involved and, with the help of an army of amateur astronomers, calculated the exact impact location of the rock. As predicted, the asteroid disintegrated in the atmosphere, scattering hundreds of meteorites across Sudan’s Nubian Desert.
The real revelation came later—2008 TC3 wasn’t just a typical rock; it was rich in nanodiamonds, the hardest material known in the universe, with an extremely small crystalline structure. Even more surprising, the surface of these diamonds was covered with another astonishing find: amino acids, the essential building blocks of life. This discovery suggests that life could theoretically form in space, and that life on Earth may have begun following a similar meteorite collision.
