In everyday language, a “shooting star” refers to a meteor—a fragment of comet or asteroid debris that streaks across the sky. Unlike meteorites, meteors burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the ground. Meteors are typically tiny, often no larger than a grain of rice.
Meteorites are essentially terrestrial in that they are composed of elements and minerals that also occur on Earth. No new element has ever been identified in a meteorite. However, they frequently contain minerals that are rare or uncommon on our planet. For example, oldhamite (calcium sulfide) was isolated from a California meteorite, a mineral scarcely found in Earth’s crust. In 1948, hundreds of meteorites fell across Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas; among them was a large specimen of enstatite achondrite, a rock rich in the silicate mineral enstatite (silicon, oxygen, magnesium). Enstatite achondrites can also contain the uncommon sulfide niningerite.
While meteorites do not host new chemical elements, they can reveal previously unknown mineral species. In 2011, scientists identified and named a new mineral—Wassonite—from a 1969 meteorite recovered in the United States. Wassonite, composed of titanium and sulfur, features a unique crystal structure that had not been observed in any natural setting. The meteorite that yielded Wassonite is thought to have originated from an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.
Geochemist Randy Korotev of Washington University in St. Louis recommends several key indicators when searching for meteorites:
Armed with these observations, hobbyists and professionals alike can more confidently distinguish meteorites from terrestrial rocks.
