Best Meteorite

L'Aigle is an L6 ordinary chondrite that fell near the town of L'Aigle in Normandy, France, on 26 April 1803. Thousands of stones reportedly reached the ground across a broad area, allowing physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot to collect testimony and examine physical evidence for the French Academy of Scie...

Almahata Sitta is the collective name for meteorite fragments recovered in Sudan after asteroid 2008 TC3 entered Earth's atmosphere on 7 October 2008. Astronomers detected and tracked the small asteroid before impact, making it the first natural object whose collision with Earth was predicted from t...

Orgueil is a CI1 carbonaceous chondrite meteorite that fell near Orgueil in southern France on 14 May 1864. CI chondrites are chemically primitive, fine-grained rocks rich in hydrated minerals and organic compounds, and their nonvolatile elemental abundances closely resemble those measured in the so...

Tagish Lake is a carbon-rich meteorite that fell over northwestern British Columbia, Canada, on 18 January 2000, scattering fragments across the frozen surface of Tagish Lake. Residents recovered some pieces quickly and kept them frozen, limiting exposure to liquid water and terrestrial contaminatio...

Canyon Diablo is the name given to iron meteorite fragments associated with Meteor Crater, also called Barringer Crater, in Arizona. The impact occurred roughly 50,000 years ago and dispersed fragments of an IAB complex iron meteorite around the crater, many containing iron-nickel metal, sulfides, a...

Cape York is a group of chemically related IIIAB iron meteorite masses found in northwestern Greenland and derived from a prehistoric fall. Greenlandic Inuit communities worked meteoritic iron from masses known as the Woman, the Dog, and the Tent into tools and weapons before sustained access to Eur...

Sikhote-Alin is a IIAB iron meteorite that broke apart over the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in the Russian Far East on 12 February 1947. Witnesses observed a brilliant daylight fireball, and the event produced numerous impact pits and a large strewn field containing many tonnes of iron fragments. Specime...

ALH 84001 is a roughly 4.1-billion-year-old Martian orthopyroxenite meteorite found in Antarctica's Allan Hills in 1984. In 1996, researchers reported microscopic structures and chemical features that they interpreted as possible evidence of ancient Martian life, prompting extensive scientific debat...

Hoba is an iron meteorite found on a farm near Grootfontein, Namibia, in 1920. With an estimated mass of about 60 tonnes, it is the largest known intact meteorite and the largest naturally occurring mass of iron found near Earth's surface. Its great weight has prevented relocation, so it remains at...

The Murchison meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite that fell near Murchison in Victoria, Australia, in 1969. Classified as a CM2 meteorite, it contains abundant organic compounds, including numerous amino acids, and has been studied extensively in research on prebiotic chemistry. Its chemically pri...

The Allende meteorite is a CV3 carbonaceous chondrite that fell over the Mexican state of Chihuahua in February 1969. It contains calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions, refractory components that formed during the earliest stages of the Solar System and rank among its oldest dated solid materials. The la...

Semarkona is an LL3.00 ordinary chondrite that fell near Semarkona, India, in 1940. Its minerals experienced exceptionally little thermal metamorphism on their parent asteroid, preserving chondrules, fine-grained material, and other evidence from the early solar system. Researchers use it to investi...

Ivuna is a CI1 carbonaceous chondrite that fell near Ivuna, Tanzania, in 1938. CI meteorites are rare, chemically primitive materials whose nonvolatile elemental abundances closely resemble those measured in the Sun, although their minerals have been extensively altered by water on their parent body...

Tissint is a Martian shergottite whose fall was witnessed in southern Morocco in July 2011, with fragments recovered from the desert soon afterward. Its relatively rapid collection limited terrestrial contamination, making it valuable for studying Martian minerals, impact processes, trapped atmosphe...

Aguas Zarcas is a CM2 carbonaceous chondrite that fell over Costa Rica on 23 April 2019. Residents and researchers recovered numerous fragments soon after the event, including material that had avoided prolonged exposure to soil, rain, and handling. Its hydrated minerals and diverse carbon-bearing c...

Elephant Moraine A79001, commonly abbreviated EETA79001, is a Martian shergottite discovered in Antarctica in 1979. Glassy impact-melt inclusions within it contain gases whose elemental and isotopic composition closely matches measurements of the Martian atmosphere made by the Viking landers. That c...

Krasnojarsk is a pallasite meteorite discovered in Siberia and first examined scientifically after specimens reached Peter Simon Pallas in the eighteenth century. Its mixture of olivine crystals and iron-nickel metal became the model for the meteorite class later named pallasites. Ernst Chladni cite...

The Ensisheim meteorite is an LL6 ordinary chondrite that fell in a field near Ensisheim, Alsace, on 7 November 1492. Contemporary accounts recorded the event, and much of the stone was preserved after local people initially removed fragments. King Maximilian, later Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I,...

Nakhla is a Martian meteorite that fell near El Nakhla El Bahariya in Egypt on 28 June 1911. It is the type specimen for nakhlites, igneous rocks dominated by clinopyroxene that crystallized from magma on Mars and were later launched into space by an impact. Secondary minerals and alteration feature...

The Winchcombe meteorite is a CM2 carbonaceous chondrite that fell over Gloucestershire, England, on 28 February 2021. Pieces were recovered rapidly after its bright fireball was recorded, limiting terrestrial contamination and giving researchers unusually pristine material. It contains hydrated min...

ALH 81005 is a meteorite found in the Allan Hills region of Antarctica in 1982 and subsequently identified as material ejected from the Moon. It is an anorthositic regolith breccia composed of fragments derived largely from the lunar highlands, mixed and consolidated by impacts. Its recognition as t...

Shergotty is a basaltic Martian meteorite that fell near Sherghati, in present-day Bihar, India, in 1865. Its mineral composition, trapped gases, and other chemical evidence connect it to rocks ejected from Mars by an impact. The specimen gives its name to shergottites, the largest major group withi...

The Willamette Meteorite is an iron meteorite found in Oregon and classified as a type IIIAB iron. Weighing about 15.5 metric tonnes, it is the largest meteorite discovered in the United States and is displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Its deeply pitted surface was shap...

Chassigny is a Martian meteorite that fell near Chassigny, France, in 1815. It is composed predominantly of olivine-rich dunite and gives its name to the chassignites, a rare group within the SNC meteorites from Mars. Researchers study its minerals, isotopes, and trapped gases to investigate the Mar...

Zagami is a Martian basaltic shergottite meteorite that fell near Zagami, Nigeria, in 1962. The recovered stone weighed about 18 kilograms, making it one of the largest individual Martian meteorites known. Its igneous minerals and trapped gases have been studied as evidence of volcanic processes and...

Peekskill is an H6 ordinary chondrite meteorite that fell over the eastern United States on October 9, 1992. Its luminous atmospheric passage was recorded on numerous amateur videos during high school football games, giving researchers unusually extensive documentation of its trajectory. A fragment...

Norton County is an aubrite meteorite that fell in 1948 near the Kansas and Nebraska border in the United States. Its recovered material totals more than one metric ton, making it the largest known aubrite by recovered mass. Aubrites are rare, enstatite rich achondrites formed through igneous proces...

Campo del Cielo is a large iron-meteorite strewn field in northern Argentina, formed when fragments of a meteoroid struck the region thousands of years ago. Indigenous communities knew of its iron masses before Spanish investigators documented them in the sixteenth century. Numerous fragments have s...

Esquel is a main-group pallasite meteorite found in Chubut Province, Argentina. The recovered mass weighed approximately 755 kilograms and consists of translucent olivine crystals embedded in an iron-nickel matrix. Its unusually large, clear crystals make polished slices visually distinctive, while...