meteorites

Cultural  

1. Objects from outside the Earth that enter the Earth's field of gravitation and fall to the Earth's surface. Meteors, on the other hand, are objects from space that burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

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Meteorites are bodies that are left over from the time when the planets formed, and therefore give us clues about the formation of the solar system.

Example Sentences

During their historic lunar flyby, astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission witnessed meteorites striking the rugged surface of the Moon, a sight that has piqued scientists' curiosity.

From Barron's • Apr. 8, 2026

Under our feet, massive anomalies distort our planet’s magnetic field: Manhattan-size rocks, colossal buried meteorites, chunks of crust that solidified when the poles were flipped.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 6, 2026

Scientists have long studied amino acids in carbon rich meteorites, including the well known Murchison meteorite that fell in Australia in 1969.

From Science Daily • Feb. 12, 2026

The huge specimen weighing more than 2.5 tonnes is believed to have come from the Aletai meteorite, one of the largest known iron meteorites on Earth, it said.

From Barron's • Feb. 5, 2026

Eighteenth-century English and French scientists rejected the ample testimony as to the reality of meteorites, as we reject stories of alien abduction.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton