Editing Jean-Baptiste Biot (section)

=== Meteorites ===
In 1803 Biot was sent by the [[Académie française]] to report back on 3000 [[meteorites]] that fell on [[L'Aigle]], in [[Normandy]], France (see [[L'Aigle (meteorite)]]). He found that the meteorites, called "stones" at the time, were from outer space.<ref>J.B. Biot (1803) [https://books.google.com/books?id=JPwTAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA3 ''Relation d'un voyage fait dans le département de l'Orne, pour constater la réalité d'un météore observé à l'Aigle le 26 floréal an 11''] [Account of a journey made in the department of the Orne [River], in order to ascertain the reality of a meteor observed in l'Aigle on the 26th of Floréal in the year 11 [Note: The date "26 floréal" on the title page is a typographical error; the meteor shower actually occurred on '''6''' floréal (i.e., April 26, 1803) and everywhere else in the text the date "6 floréal" is given as the date of the meteor shower. (Paris, France:  Baudouin, 1803).</ref> With his report, Biot helped support the German physicist [[Ernst Chladni]]'s argument, published in 1794, that meteorites were debris from space.<ref>Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich, ''Über den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen und über einige damit in Verbindung stehende Naturerscheinungen'' [On the origin of the iron masses found by [[Peter Simon Pallas|Pallas]] and others similar to it, and on some natural phenomena associated with them] (Riga, Latvia:  [[Johann Friedrich Hartknoch]], 1794). Available on-line at: [http://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/79533/5/ Saxon State and University Library at Dresden, Germany].</ref>[[File:Jean-Baptiste Biot by Henri Victor Regnault, 1851.jpg|thumb|right|Biot in 1851]]
Prior to Biot's thorough investigation of the meteorites that fell near l'Aigle, France in 1803, very few truly believed that rocks found on Earth could have extraterrestrial origins. There were anecdotal tales of unusual rocks found on the ground after fireballs had been seen in the sky, but such stories were often dismissed as fantasy. Serious debate concerning the unusual rocks began in 1794 when Ernst Chladni published a book claiming that such rocks had an extraterrestrial origin (Westrum). Only after Biot was able to analyse the rocks at l'Aigle was it commonly accepted that the fireballs seen in the sky were meteors falling through the atmosphere. Since Biot's time, analysis of meteorites has resulted in accurate measurements of the chemical composition of the [[Solar System]]. The composition and position of meteors in the Solar System have also given astronomers clues as to how the Solar System formed.