meteorite

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a piece of rock or metal from space that survives passage through an atmosphere and reaches the ground

   Scientists recovered a small iron meteorite from the desert.

Formed from meteor + the mineral and rock suffix -ite. Meteor comes through Latin meteorum from Greek meteoron ('thing high in the air'), from meteoros ('raised, aloft'). A meteoroid is the body while it remains in space; it becomes a meteor during its visible atmospheric passage and a meteorite if material reaches the ground.

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