ABSTRACT
Meteorites reach ground level without being destroyed. They are not simply large meteors; they do not belong to showers, and have no definite association with comets, but seem to come mainly from the asteroid belt. Normal meteorites are ancient; their ages are given as 4.6 thousand million years–the same as that of the Earth itself. The earliest reports of meteoritic phenomena are recorded on Egyptian papyrus, around 2000 BC. Early meteorites falls are, naturally, poorly documented, but it seems that a meteorite fell in Crete in 1478 BC, stones near Orchomenos in Boetia in 1200 BC and an iron meteorite on Mount Ida in Crete in 1168 BC. Meteorites were recognized as extraterrestrial only a few centuries ago. Meteorites are of three main types: irons, stonyirons and stones. The largest meteorite on display in a museum is the Ahnighito, found by Robert Peary in Greenland in 1897.
