Meteorites Explained | How to Find & Own a Piece of the Universe

Hey everybody, my name is Chase Pipes with the Relic Room and today we are going to talk about meteorite. [Music] So what is a meteorite? What what determines what a meteorite is? Well, a meteorite is basically a stone that falls through the Earth's atmosphere and still survives and hits the Earth's surface. It is literally a space rock. So how do those space rocks form? Well, up in space you have planets and other objects like asteroids floating around, but you also have a lot of just this small debris, bits and pieces of exploded planets or or comet comet parts that have separated out. And what happens is is the Earth's gravity over time will pull these objects. Sometimes these objects are really tiny, just the size of a tennis ball. But sometimes they're really huge like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. All those if they make it to the surface of the earth and crash and are still there, they are considered meteorites. So there are three distinctive types of meteorites. There are the stony type, there are the stony iron type and then there are the iron type. Each type is consists of solid iron or an metal alloy, a mix of stone and iron combination and then nothing but solid stone with a very very low metal content. So when you look outside and you see a shooting star, what is a shooting star? Well, a shooting star actually is something that can become a meteorite. You see, when that asteroid enters in the Earth's atmosphere, that brightness that you're seeing, you're actually seeing the degration, the the burning up of that meteorite body uh in the Earth's atmosphere. As it disintegrates, the flame, the heat that's generated from it, entering the atmosphere, makes a streak across the sky. And that streak that you're seeing, what we call shooting stars, it has a meteorite inside that. As it enters the atmosphere, it cools down and it continues its path down until it hits the surface of the Earth and then becomes a meteorite. So, how do we go out and we find meteorites? Meteorites are found literally all over the surface of the planet from the Arctic Circle to the African continent to the United States to probably right outside your home right now. Meteorite Falls are really well known because people have been hunting for meteorites for literally over a hundred years. One of the main ways that they go and they find meteorites is with use of a metal detector. So what these guys are doing is is they're going out to known fall sites. So as that meteorite makes its way down into the Earth's surface, sometimes it cools so much that it explodes in the Earth's atmosphere. A real famous example of this is the Chelbuninsk meteorite. If you guys remember in 2013, we got the most videoed meteorite fall in all of human history. Chelbunins in Russia where you saw that streak of light going through and then it exploding in the in the air. So what happened is is that was a solid meteorite body that when it hits the upper atmosphere, it cooled so quickly that that meteorite literally exploded into a thousand pieces raining bunches of meteorite pieces down to Earth. This is Chelin. What's interesting about this meteorite is is that it has a very low iron content. So, a lot of this meteorite was found when it actually exploded. If you go online and you look, you'll see photographs of these meteorite pieces standing on tops of snow because when it fell down to the earth, it literally just landed onto the snow and the snow melted around it, leaving these meteorite pieces on a pedestal. Meaning that they were really only found just that one one bit of time. Meteorites like this one here, Canyon Diablo, which is found in Arizona, has a very high iron content. Because of this, they really read up under under a metal detecting signature. So, what is done is is people go out to what's known as a known strewn field, which is basically a geographical area where you can go and search with a metal detector, and you're going to have a pretty good chances of finding one of these meteorites. One of the things that you look for is is you look for the burn or the rind that's on the skin of the meteorite. What you see is is you see the melting of the metal as it was entering the Earth's atmosphere. And this rind that you see on the meteorite is one of the ways to tell. Another way to tell is to actually have the samples sent off to have their chemical composition, their chemical signature basically analyzed. Each meteorite has its own chemical signature that's like a fingerprint for each different stone and is a really easy way to tell one meteorite from another. Another interesting aspect of meteorites is is to have the meteorite sliced in an acid etched. What you're exposing is you're exposing the crystallin structure of the meteorite. So basically this iron content has a crystallin structure. So by slicing it and then exposing it to a mild acid, what it does is is it reduces the polish layer from being saw and exposes the crystalline structure of the iron itself. Look, it's the crystalline structure of the iron. Is that not freaking epic? Another really cool type of meteorite is the Martian and the lunar meteorite. So how do we get moon rock and Mars rock here on Earth? Well, that's through meteorites. So, what happens is is that whenever an object impacts the moon, it sends that debris up into the space that surrounds it. So, you have these actual bits of the moon floating around in space. What happens is is over time the Earth's gravitational pull captures those objects where they get pulled down to the surface and land on Earth as a meteorite. Because we've been to Mars and we c because we've been to moon, we know the chemical signature of the rocks on those two celestial bodies. And because of that, we can tell whether a meteorite is from Mars or from the moon. Is that not cool? It's a moon rock. One of the most epic types of meteorites is a type known as a palisite. What that is is that's a meteorite that literally has gemstones within it. If you can see these gemstones within this meteorite, basically you have the iron structure of the meteorite itself and then within it is encapsulated these tiny tiny little gemstones. These are avaline crystals that are trapped within the meteorite's body itself by slicing the meteorite exposing it to a mild acid. You can see the crystallin structure of the meteorite and the actual freaking gemstones inside the meteorite. How cool is that? A really cool after effect of a meteorite's impact are what's known as tectites, which are these. These are meteorite impact stones. So, what happens is is as the meteorite makes contact with the Earth's surface, it will the heat that's generated within that contact melts, liquefies the Earth's surface, and sends it flying up into the air as a liquid. As it cools, it rains down in these little globs like this known as tectite. This is a tectite known as Libyan glass. What's interesting about this is is it's been used for literally thousands of years as not only tools for the native people that live in that part of the Saharan desert, but also the scarab that's on King Tuten Common Sarcophagus is made of molivian glass. So Tutin Common has a meteorite tectite, a meteorite impact glass literally carved into a scarab on his tomb. Meteorites can also be a really useful tool in explaining some of the geological massive geological events that happened here on the Earth's surface. For example, up until about the 1960s, it was always a mystery on what exactly killed the dinosaurs. Was it disease? Was it other animals? Could it have been a meteorite? In the 1960s, the Chickixaloo crater was discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. When they discovered that crater, they knew that it had to be a meteorite impact, especially when it dated to the end of the time of the dinosaurs. Then was discovered the KT boundary layer, which is this layer right here. What this layer is is this is the KT layer. This is the layer of ash and meteorite dust that literally coats the entirety of the Earth's surface on that 65.5 millionyear time span. So from the American Southwest to the coast of Spain where it was first really confirmed to Siberia, the KT Bay layer is found literally throughout the entirety of the Earth's surface. Within that layer is a very rare element that's found here on Earth called uridium. However, uridium is extremely common in meteorites because of the high uridium content within this layer and the micrometeorites that were found. We were able to prove that in fact a meteorite impact killed the dinosaurs. So, how did meteorites get their name? Well, a really interesting story of how that happens is tied up in this meteorite right here. This is a meteorite that's called Tatooine. That name's familiar to a lot of you Star Wars fan out there, isn't it? Well, this meteorite was discovered in the 1930s and was named after the town of Tatooine near where it was discovered in Tunisia. What's really fascinating is is that 40 years later, a young filmmaker named George Lucas went to that exact same town, to that exact same area to film his epic series Star Wars. when he was looking for a name for Luke's home planet, he settled on the name of the town near where he was filming, Tatooine. So, meteorites will often get their names from either the people who discover them, or in this case, the town in which it was found. Is that not cool? It's part of Luke's home. Well, it's not really Luke's home, but it is kind of Luke's home. So, yeah, Tatooine. We got tons of these here at the shop. So, are meteorites rare? Well, where meteorites are found, they're actually pretty common. What is rare is people out there hunting for meteorites. For an example, the most common meteorite out there is this one. This is meteorite fall number NWA869, named Northwest Africa number 869. This is arguably the most uh abundant meteorite ever. So, but its location is in a very rare and remote location. That being said, very while this meteorite is very abundant, very few people actually go to hunt for it. So, are meteorites rare? Yes and no. But what is rare is people out there discovering this stuff, which is why we need more people like you guys out there hunting for this history. Because I guarantee you that you can go online, look up your own hometown, and you can actually find places in your state where meteorites have fallen that you can actually go out and find. Another really rare meteorite type is this. This is impact melt brechia. Basically, what has happened is is this is where two astral bodies have literally colliding in space, fusing those two together. So then you have these two objects colliding in space and then you have the rarity of them actually being pulled in by Earth's gravity and falling as a meteorite and then they're found. But it gives us another really cool thing that happens in space to look at and understand by seeing this impact melt Brettia. What do two rocks look what is a rock look like that is collided in space with another rock? This is it. And another one of the fascinating things that you can learn from meteorites. Meteorites are something really cool and something that you can actually collect. So meteorites are out there. There's a whole community of people out there that find and discover them. And there's a whole community of people out there that have them where you can take them home like us here at the Relic Room. To pick up your own piece of a meteorite or a tectite or something really cool from outer space, click the link in the description below. The relic.com. We've got meteorite pieces and tectite specimens from over 40 different falls, ranging the entire width of types of meteorites that you can collect and most importantly at a price that you can afford because everybody should be allowed to collect this awesome piece of world history. Remember guys, history rocks. Woohoo. [Music]