On a broken or sawn face, all lunar meteorites look like some kinds of Earth rocks, even to an experienced meteorite scientist.

The fusion crust is vesicular (trapped gas bubbles) for reasons described at the bottom of this page. It is a feldspathic breccia, which is poor in iron and that, consequently, has a lighter-colored fusion crust. (Another piece, QUE 94269, was found the following year). QUE is a piece broken off a larger meteorite after it landed on the ice. It is a complete stone with bits of fusion crust chipped off. LAP is a basalt, which is rich in iron and which in turn causes the fusion crust to be dark. Two lunar meteorites found in Antarctica, LaPaz Icefield (LAP) 02205 (1226 g) and Queen Alexandra Range (QUE) 93069 (23 g). Grossman (2010): “A meteorite is a natural, solid object larger than 10 µm in size, derived from a celestial body, that was transported by natural means from the body on which it formed to a region outside the dominant gravitational influence of that body and that later collided with a natural or artificial body larger than itself (even if it was the same body from which it was launched).”įig. A more technical but accurate definition of a meteorite is given by Alan E.

meteorite – A rock found on Earth that was once a meteoroid.

meteor – The visible light that occurs when a meteoroid passes through the Earth’s atmosphere.

meteoroid – A small (asteroid – A big (>1 meter) rock or aggregation of rocks orbiting the sun.Those in orbit around the Sun may also eventually strike the Earth up to a few tens of millions of years after they were launched from the Moon. Over a period of a few years to tens of thousands of years, those orbiting the Earth eventually fall to Earth. Most rocks ejected from the Moon become captured by the gravitational field of either the Earth or the Sun and go into orbit around those bodies. Any rock on the lunar surface that is accelerated by the impact of a meteoroid to lunar escape velocity or greater will leave the Moon’s gravitational influence. Lunar escape velocity averages 2.38 km/s (1.48 miles per second), only a few times the muzzle velocity of a common rifle (0.7-1.0 km/s). How did lunar meteorites get here?īecause the Moon has no atmosphere to stop them, meteoroids strike the Moon every day. In other words, they are rocks found on Earth that were ejected from the Moon by the impact of an asteroidal meteoroid or possibly a comet.

Lunar meteorites, or lunaites, are meteorites from the Moon. A few rare meteorites come from the Moon (0.7%) and Mars (0.5%). Most (99%) recovered meteorites are pieces of asteroids. A meteor is the visible streak of light that occurs as the rock passes through the atmosphere and exterior of the rock is heated to incandescence. A meteoroid is what we call the rock while it is in orbit and before it is decelerated by the Earth’s atmosphere. List of lunar meteorites What is a meteorite?Ī meteorite is a rock that was formed elsewhere in the Solar System, was orbiting the sun or a planet for a long time, was eventually captured by Earth’s gravitational field, and fell to Earth as a solid object.

Meteorite identification pictures