Mary Helen Hartnett, age 12, of Sioux City, Iowa for her question;

What is a meteorite?

A meteorite is a fallen meteor. It is a lump of rock or metal, often covered with a charred black crust. For long ages of time it was a traveler through the‑spaces of the Solar System. It wandered endlessly, never going too close to‑the ‑planets and moons. Then this carefree traveler met with a traffic accident which changed its way of life and its name. It crashed into  the earth's atmosphere and fell to the ground. The traveling meteor became an earth bound meteorite.

The crash itself was something to see. The falling meteor cut through the atmosphere in a blazing arch. You would have called it a falling star. Through space the lump of matter was traveling at a speed of many miles a second. There was, not even air to resist its speed. The filmy atmosphere of the earth acted like a brake, The meteor had to slow up and the friction of striking through the air was like a match on sandpaper. The solid meteor became sizzling hot, reached many thousands of degrees, and caught fire. The fire started more than 100 miles above the ground.

This meteor was a large one, traveling faster than a bullet. Most of them are so small that they burn to ashes long before reaching the ground, In order for some of it to reach the ground our meteor must originally weigh ten pounds or more. Then some of it is saved from the fire and lands with a thud.‑on the ground. It is now a meteorite.

There are two classes of meteorites. Some are made entirely of stony materials, mostly of silicate minerals. The others are dense metal., concentrations of iron and nickel. Meteorites arrive in various shapes and sizes. The really big ones are usually metal. The stony ones tend to break up in the fall or when they hit the ground. What’s more, stony meteorites tend to hide among the stones on the ground. The charred metal meteorites are more noticeable. We find more of them and more of them end up on show in the museums.

They look like huge dark boulders of irregular shape. Those that were ,discoverer, goon after discovered soon after the fall have a shiny black crust. This is because the heat of the fall melted and fused the outer metal. Those that were left outdoors for a while tend to be brownish, This is because the air has oxidized the iron. Sometimes the metal is riddled with holes and pits.

Millions of tiny meteors collide with the earth every day. Slowly, slowly they add their settling dust to the weight of the world. These midgets never get to be meteorites. Of those that do, most are no bigger than small pebbles. And naturally, three quarters of them fall into the ocean.

Once in a great while, however, a large meteorite does reach the ground. Such meteorites crash into the ground with such force they almost bury themselves. One such meteorite which fell in Arizona did bury itself. This happened long ago and no one recorded the event. The falling giant left a hole three quarters of a mile wide but it plunged or sank so deep that the meteorite itself has never been found. The hole it left is called Meteor Crater and we can visit it near Winslow, Arizona.