Descriptions

Meteors are lumps of rock that hurtle through space after breaking off from planets or moons. They usually splinter into fragments called meteorites. Only the largest lumps eventually reach the Earth’s surface.

This meteorite was discovered in the geology collection at RAMM in the 1990s. We do not know where or when it hit the ground or who gave it to the museum. But it is probably the oldest object here.

Some meteorites contain tiny glassy spheres, called chondrules. These may have been created by dust molecules melting in the sun’s heat while our solar system was still in its earliest stages of formation. The rock often starts to melt on the outside during its journey through the earth’s atmosphere. Most meteorites have a thin black coating or fusion crust.


This object is on display at RAMM in the Case Histories gallery.