Editing Meteoroid (section)

== Meteorites ==
{{Main|Meteorite}}
[[File:Murnpeowie meteorite.jpg|thumb|Murnpeowie [[meteorite]], an [[iron meteorite]] with [[wikt:regmaglypt|regmaglypts]] resembling thumbprints (Australia, 1910)]]

A meteorite is a portion of a meteoroid or asteroid that survives its passage through the atmosphere and hits the ground without being destroyed.<ref>''The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary''. 1976. Second Edition. Oxford University Press. p. 533</ref> Meteorites are sometimes, but not always, found in association with hypervelocity [[impact crater]]s; during energetic collisions, the entire impactor may be vaporized, leaving no meteorites. [[Geologist]]s use the term, "bolide", in a different sense from [[astronomer]]s to indicate a very large [[impact event|impactor]]. For example, the [[United States Geological Survey|USGS]] uses the term to mean a generic large crater-forming projectile in a manner "to imply that we do not know the precise nature of the impacting body ... whether it is a rocky or metallic asteroid, or an icy comet for example".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/epubs/bolide/introduction.html |title=What is a Bolide? |publisher=woodshole.er.usgs.gov |access-date=2011-09-16}}</ref>

Meteoroids also hit other bodies in the Solar System. On such stony bodies as the [[Moon]] or [[Mars]] that have little or no atmosphere, they leave enduring craters.

=== Impact craters ===
{{Main|Impact crater}}

Meteoroid collisions with solid Solar System objects, including the Moon, [[mercury (planet)|Mercury]], [[Callisto (moon)|Callisto]], [[Ganymede (moon)|Ganymede]], and most small moons and [[asteroid]]s, create impact craters, which are the dominant geographic features of many of those objects. On other planets and moons with active surface geological processes, such as Earth, [[Venus]], [[Mars]], [[Europa (moon)|Europa]], [[io (moon)|Io]], and [[Titan (moon)|Titan]], visible impact craters may become [[erosion|eroded]], buried, or transformed by [[tectonics]] over time. In early literature, before the significance of impact cratering was widely recognised, the terms [[cryptoexplosion]] or cryptovolcanic structure were often used to describe what are now recognised as impact-related features on Earth.<ref>{{cite web |last1=French |first1=Bevan M. |author-link=Traces of Catastrophe |year=1998 |url=http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/books/CB-954/CB-954.intro.html |title=Traces of Catastrophe: A Handbook of Shock-Metamorphic Effects in Terrestrial Meteorite Impact Structures |location=Washington, DC |publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]] |page=97}}</ref> Molten terrestrial material ejected from a meteorite impact crater can cool and solidify into an object known as a [[tektite]]. These are often mistaken for meteorites. Terrestrial rock, sometimes with pieces of the original meteorite, created or modified by an impact of a meteorite is called [[impactite]].

=== Gallery of meteorites ===

<gallery class="center" mode="packed" heights="140px">
File:Two tektites.JPG|Two [[tektite]]s, molten terrestrial ejecta from a [[meteorite impact]]
File:Esquel pallasite partial slice.jpg|A partial slice of the [[Esquel (meteorite)|Esquel pallasite]]
Image:Willamette Meteorite AMNH.jpg|[[Willamette Meteorite]], from Oregon, US
Image:Meteorite Lapham.jpg|Meteorite, which fell in [[Wisconsin]] in 1868
Image:Meteorito Marília.jpg|[[Marília (meteorite)|Marília Meteorite]], a [[chondrite]] H4, which fell in [[Marília]], Brazil (1971)
File:Mesa-Arizona Museum of Natural History-Tucson Meteorite.JPG|Children posing behind a replica of the [[Tucson Ring meteorite|Tucson Meteorite]] at the [[Arizona Museum of Natural History]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org/explore-the-museum/exhibitions/arizona-through-time |title=Arizona Through Time |website=[[Arizona Museum of Natural History]] |access-date=2024-09-03}}</ref>
File:Meteorite Tindouf NWA 869.jpg|Meteorite with [[breccia]]tion and [[carbon]] inclusions from [[Tindouf]], Algeria<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull.php?code=31890|title=Northwest Africa 869|publisher=The Meteoritical Society|work=Meteoritical Bulletin Database}}</ref>
</gallery>