What is Meteor, How Is It Formed?

With the development of technology and the increase in the possibilities of observation and investigation, it has been understood that this event, which could not be understood, is actually an event experienced when solid and small masses moving in space enter the earth's atmosphere, and that even the visible ones are not stars. What people saw and watched was not a shooting star, but a meteor, also known as a meteorite.

Meteor comes from the Latin word 'meteoron', meaning an extraordinary event in the sky. Meteor is the name given to the fact that the substances in the solar system become incandescent as a result of friction with the air at high speed while falling into the earth's atmosphere, and are seen from the earth as a short-term light line, especially at night. In other words, it is the general name of the stones and rock pieces that fall to the earth from space.

 The meteor, also known as a meteorite among the people, falls on the earth very rarely. On average, several thousand meteorites fall on the earth's surface annually. However, only about 500 of these stones reach the earth without evaporation. Some scientists say the number is even higher. Since most of the Earth's surface is covered with water, most of the meteorites that can reach the Earth fall into the oceans or lakes. For this reason, the number of meteorites falling on the earth is much more than is known.

According to scientists doing research on how the meteor was formed, the Earth, which revolves around the Sun on a large ellipse at a speed of 30 km per second, occasionally encounters some stones and rock fragments of various sizes circulating in space during this wandering. The speed of these rock and stone pieces is approximately 30 km per second. During the movement of the Earth around the Sun, the stones that are close enough to the Earth gain a high velocity by the gravity of the Earth and enter the Earth's atmosphere.

 The walnut or chickpea-sized ones burn in the air and become dust by drawing a light line. This is what people call a 'star falling' or 'star falling'. The larger pieces, on the other hand, are burnt to pieces by the frictional heat created by the first velocity and spilled on the earth. Stones made of iron and nickel among the spilled parts do not crumble. They hit the ground hard and fast like a cannonball. Thus, meteor stones, which are classified as very precious stones and which are even collected today, are formed.

Meteorites are very similar to some rocks on Earth. In order to distinguish meteorites from other rocks, thin sections should be made and examined with a polarizing microscope. Thus, it turns out that the crystallization and menerological compositions of metallic meteorites with a very high density are very different from the materials found in the world.

Very old meteorites were formed 4.5 billion years ago. The study of meteorites helps us understand how the solar system came to be, and also gives information about the materials inside the planets.

Meteorites are divided into 4 basic classes according to their structure and composition. These:

Glassy Meteorites: Glassy meteorites, which are very rarely found on earth, have a glass-like structure.

Stone-like Meteorites (Aerolite): Composed of iron, silicon, carbon, aluminum, oxygen and magnesium.

Stone Iron Sky Stones (Siderolite): It is composed of an almost equal structure with metal and silica-layer ratio.

Ferrous Meteorites (Siderite): It has more iron and nickel in its structure. Apart from that, there are gallium, nickel, germanium and iridium.

 Although most of the meteors disappear in the atmosphere, meteorites that bypass the atmosphere barrier and fall to the earth can be small in size and sometimes huge in size. These gigantic meteors can open craters of the same size. The 10 big craters opened by meteorites that have fallen to the earth so far are as follows:

Barringer Crater, Arizona, USA

Bosumtwi, Ghana

Deep Bay, Canada

Aorounga Crater, Chad, Africa

Gosses Bluff, Australia

Lake Mistastin, Canada

Clearwater Lakes, Canada

Kara-Kul, Tajikistan

Manicouagan, Canada

Chicxulub, Mexico

The largest meteorite that has fallen to the earth to date is the Goba Meteorite in Namibia.

Thousands of meteors can be seen together in the sky, moving in one and certain direction. While some meteorites are as small as a pinhead, some meteorites can weigh many tons. When a meteorite reaches the earth's surface, it is called a 'meteroid'.