Elements Found in Meteorites & Meteors

Meteorites are pieces from minor planets that orbit the sun. Meteorites have passed through the Earth's atmosphere and made impact with its surface. A meteor consists of the trail of light that a meteorite produces as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere. You may have heard people call them shooting stars because they look like stars falling from the sky. Meteorites and meteors contain the same elements that you find on the Earth.
  1. Stony Meteorites

    • Stony meteorites are one category of meteorites. They contain significant amounts of silicon and oxygen. They also have smaller quantities of iron, magnesium and other elements. Chondrites are a subgroup of the stony meteorites. They are from the same material that the planets developed from. The metal phase of chondrites contains more than 99 percent of the meteorite's iron and cobalt. It also contains at least 90 percent of its other elements, such as platinum and gold.

    Stony-Iron Meteorites

    • Another major meteorite category is the stony-iron meteorites. These meteorites developed from the inner crust of a melted asteroid. Stony-iron meteorites have about equal amounts of silicon-based stone and iron-nickel metal.

    Iron Meteorites

    • Iron meteorites come from the metallic core of the asteroids that melted and formed stony-iron meteorites. They mostly contain iron and nickel.

    Other Elements

    • Meteorites and meteors contain a number of other elements other than those found in large amounts in the major meteorite forms. Fluorine appears in low concentrations in a number of minerals present in meteorites. Zinc, gallium, tin, antimony, germanium, arsenic, rubidium, strontium, zirconium, niobium, molybdenum are other elements found in meteorites.

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