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Ted Driver, age 13, of Arlington, Texas 

What is a meteorite?

Every meteorite has had a very exciting history. For ages and ages nobody knows how long, it drifted and sped through the empty space of the Solar System. It may have been close enough to see the rings of Saturn. It may have brushed by giant Jupiter and got a close‑up view of veiled Venus. The cold lump of drifting matter may have been small as a pinhead or big as a small planet.

This drifting existence ended in a blaze of glory.  The lump of matter came close enough to feel the pull of earth's gravity. It got into a collision with the world, After the nothingness of empty space, the air above the earth was thick and dense. Jam vent the brakes, The lump of matter slowed up and went through the atmosphere‑like a match strike  sandpaper. For a few moments, it was a glowing meteor a falling star.

Most meteors are no bigger than grains of sand. In the intense heat of friction, they are burned to ashes in the fall through the air. A pebble sized meteor has a chance of reaching the ground before it is entirely consumed. It falls with a thud. A really big meteor may plunge into the ground, leaving a big hole.

The first thing it does is to take a new name. Once grounded a meteor becomes a meteorite. Its drifting days are over so is its brief moment of meteor glory. Most meteorites get lost among the other stones on the ground. Some are found and put into collections. A few end up grandly in museums where everybody can see them and wonder about their secret past.

Experts of course, are curious about what is inside the meteorites, Big or small, a meteorite is likely to be covered with a black or brown crust. This is caused by the air blast during the fall heating the material to molten temperatures. Experts can tell the direction of the fall from the grooves in this crust.

Inside, the meteorite is a mixture of minerals. There may be diamond graphite, quartz, iron oxide and various compounds  nickel, chromium aluminum, magnesium  iron and calcium. Some of the compounds do not occur in nature on earth but no unknown elements have been found in meteorites,

Some meteorites are made of all stony substances, some are made of all metals and some are mixtures of both stone‑and metal substances.

Meteorites come in all sizes, The biggest one known is a stony meteorite weighing 1,230 pounds. However, this big immigrant is not all in one piece. It was broken by its fall into four large pieces and over 3, 000 fragments,

Suppose a big meteorite fell on your head? That is a very big suppose indeed. For, as far as we know, nobody has ever been hurt by a falling star meteorite. Sizeable ones are very, very rare, The earth and the ocean are large enough to receive them without damage.

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