Hands on Tauranga offers students stimulating and original learning opportunities with real museum objects that support the New Zealand curriculum at primary and secondary school level.
This matakōkiri (meteorite) was originally found in the Sahara Desert in Algeria. Meteorites found in this area show chondrules which are unknown in Earth rocks and were formed when the Solar System was first developing. This meteorite is a chondrite. Chondrites are stony (non -metallic) meteorites, and are typically about 4.55 billion years old (as old as planet Earth).
Most meteorites are bits of asteroids from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, although some are bits of comets (meteors) or, very rarely, pieces of the Moon or Mars.
Over the course of Earth’s history, many meteorites (large and small) have fallen to our planet’s surface. The most famous are the Allende, the Fukang, Hoba, and the Willamette Meteorite.
There has only been one recorded incident of a meteorite hitting a human. On Nov 30 1954 Ann Hodges was struck by a meteorite in Alabama, USA.
New Zealand is a very small target on the surface of the earth so meteorites are rare. As 70% of the Earth's surface is water, most meteorites land in the ocean.
Nine known meteorites have fallen here (although there are probably many more that haven't been discovered yet)
No large impact sites have been found in NZ but there are numerous impact craters in Australia.
New Zealand does have a record of one of the largest impact events in the history of our planet, namely the Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago that is thought to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. There is a layer of soot and clay from the event found in only certain parts of the world, called the ‘K/T boundary’. It can be seen in New Zealand.
The nine known meteorites are:
Vocabulary
Asteroid: An asteroid is a small rocky object that orbits the Sun. Asteroids are smaller than a planet, but they are much larger than the objects we call meteoroids. Sixty-six million years ago, dinosaurs became extinct due to an asteroid hitting earth.
Meteoroid: A small piece broken off an asteroid (meteoroids can also come from comets). Meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites are really names for space rocks at different stages. The ones floating around in space are meteoroids.
Meteor: If a meteoroid comes close enough to Earth and enters Earth’s atmosphere, it vaporises and turns into a meteor: a streak of light in the sky. Because of their appearance, these streaks of light are sometimes called "shooting stars."
Meteorite: a piece of rock or metal that has fallen to the earth's surface from outer space. Meteorites are 90% rock. Millions of meteoroids travel through Earth’s atmosphere each day. Meteorites are fragments of material usually from asteroids (although some have come from the Moon and Mars).
> Click here to download 'Meteorites- A 'Hands on Tauranga resource for teachers'
max dimension: 70mm
subject area: Science
specific themes: Space, Environment, Minerals, Rock
handling collection number: HC159
