Meteorites in Reception!

Class: Reception - Mrs Harrison Year: 2021 - 2022

We were so lucky this week to have one of our parents join us in school to show us something very exciting - real meterorites! We felt so lucky to be able to look at them so closely and it really sparked our discussions about space and the world around us. We had lots of questions and learnt that if we are curious and ask questions then we are already part way to being real scientists! 

Thank you so much to Phill for this wonderful experience! 

Here is some information about what we looked at: 

Parnallee Meteorite

• Found 160 years ago in India
• Contains spots called chondrules
• Formed only 2 million years after the sun and has not changed since
• This meteorite is a snapshot of our early Solar System before the planets formed!
• It contains the original dust and small rocky grains that formed the planets and asteroids that make up our solar system
• It is the oldest object you will likely ever, ever touch – at least half a billion years older than the other meteorites.

Gibeon Meteorite?

• “Reported” in Namibia 179 years ago but has actually made into tools for thousands of years by native people and prized by the Egyptian Pharaohs. ?
• We believe that it fell to earth 30 000 years ago.?
• It comes from the liquid iron core of an extinct planet blown apart 4 billion years ago after colliding with another planet or large asteroid.?
• It has beautiful crystal patterns that only form over millions of years of cooling – you cannot make iron crystals like this on Earth!

Seymchan Meteorite

• First discovered in June 1967 in Magadan, Russia
• Called a ‘pallasite’ ?
• It comes from the inside of an ancient asteroid (somewhere between the core and the mantle) which is why it has iron and those yellow ‘olivine’ crystals.
• These meteorites are so pretty that they are often made into jewellery

Brahin Meteorite?

• Found in Russia,110 years ago
• Called a ‘pallasite’ ?
• It comes from the inside of an ancient asteroid (somewhere between the core and the mantle) which is why it has iron and those yellow ‘olivine’ crystals.
• These meteorites are so pretty that they are often made into jewellery

Martian Meteorite

• This is one of the younger meteorite it is only 1.38 billion years old! Compared to most of the others that are around 4.5 billion years old
• It was found in Egypt 106 years ago
• It was originally made inside of a volcano on the planet Mars!
• It was ejected from the surface of Mars into space when Mars was hit by another meteorite 11 million years ago and eventually crashed through Earth’s atmosphere.

Lunar Meteorite

• Again, this is one of the younger meteorites
• It was ejected from the surface of the moon into space when the moon was hit by another meteorite and eventually crashed through Earth’s atmosphere.
• It was found in North West Africa and was so hot when it landed that the sand from the dessert melted around the outside forming an orange crust