Every day, Earth is bombarded by material from space.
Most of it is tiny — grains of dust that burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere as shooting stars.
But occasionally, something larger survives the journey.
When a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere, it can be travelling faster than 40,000 km per hour. The air in front of it compresses and heats up, causing the surface to glow and burn.
This is what creates the bright streak we call a meteor.
Most objects break apart before reaching the ground, but some fragments survive. When they land on Earth’s surface, they are known as meteorites.
Many of the meteorites found today actually landed thousands of years ago. Places like Antarctica and the Sahara Desert are ideal locations for discovering them, because the dark stones stand out clearly against ice or sand.
Each meteorite is a visitor from beyond Earth — a fragment of asteroids, planetary cores, or ancient debris left over from the formation of the solar system.
A rock that began its journey billions of years ago, drifted silently through space, survived the violent plunge through Earth’s atmosphere… and then simply landed somewhere on our planet.
Imagine being the person who finds it.