Where can I find meteorites?

meteorites can theoretically be found in any real desert or anywhere on a permanent glacier, especially on the entire Antarctic continent. In fact, meteorite hunting can be accepted by anyone as a hobby using a metal detector in a well -known Strewnadfield (an area with numerous meteorites that are fragments of the parent body). In many deserts around the world are known Strewnfields, such as Fraconia Meteorite Strewnfield in Arizona.

Meteorites have a different name depending on the circumstances in which they were found - when the meteorite descent witnesses and the object is later restored, it is called a fall. When a meteorite is just found on Earth without previous reports about it in the process of falling, it is just called finding. There are about 1,050 Falls witnesses and over 31,000 well -documented findings. Meteorites are always named after the place where they were found.

The most common types of meteorite are Stony Chondrites, named for small spheres that are their primary component. These balls millimeters-aCross was formed as molten droplets on the earliest days of the solar system than aggregated to larger asteroids. 27,000 of all found meteorites are chondrits and many of them have a high content of iron-up, which can be found using metal detector. The only drawback of these meteorites is that they do not look like apparent meteorites on an untrained eye.

meteorites that have a more typical appearance of the "meteorite" are iron meteorites that represent about 6% of all found meteorites. It is one of the most famous and known, the largest is Hoba Meteorite in Namibia, with a length of 2.7 meters (8 ft 9 inches) and a weight of 60 tons. Meteorite Hoba is the largest natural piece of iron on the Earth's surface. Overall, they make up about 90% of the weight of all known meteorites.