Astronomy › Section J · Small bodies and the origin of the solar system › Topic J.4
Meteors and meteorites
Every day Earth sweeps up tonnes of dust and rock from space. Most of it flashes out as shooting stars high in the air, but the pieces that reach the ground are the oldest rocks we can hold, samples of the solar system's first few million years.
In this topic
- Three words for one rock
- Seeing meteors
- Worked example: a grain with a car's energy
- Meteor showers
- Meteorites: falls and finds
- Stones, irons and stony-irons
- Primitive and differentiated
- The oldest rocks we can hold
- Worked example: uranium in an old meteorite
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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