XXIII METEORITES
Meteorites, bolides or fireballs, as they are variously called, are stones that fall to the earth from the heavens. They furnish the one tangible evidence that we possess, aside from that furnished by the spectroscope, as to the composition of other bodies in space and it is a significant fact that no unknown elements have ever been found in meteorites, though the forms in which they appear are so characteristic that they make these stones readily distinguishable from stones of terrestrial origin.
The origin of meteorites is not definitely known, but the evidence is very strong in favor of the theory that they are the larger fragments of disintegrated comets of which meteors and shooting stars are the smaller; the distinction between the two being simply that the latter class includes all bodies that are completely consumed by friction with the earth's atmosphere and, therefore, only reach the surface in the form of meteoric dust.
According to other theories meteorites may be fragments of shattered worlds that have chanced to come too near to a larger body and have been disrupted, or they may possibly be the larger fragments of the disintegrated comets of which the meteoric swarms are the smaller.
Interplanetary space is not altogether a void. Our own planet sweeps up in the course of a single day, it has been estimated, approximately twenty million shooting stars or meteors of sufficient size to be visible to the naked eye, while the estimate for the telescopic particles runs up to four hundred million.
Meteorites on the other hand are comparatively rare. On the average it has been estimated about one hundred meteorites strike the earth in the course of a year, of which number only two or three are actually seen. According to Bulletin 94, U. S. National Museum, approximately six hundred and fifty falls and finds of meteorites have been reported, representatives of which appear in museums and private collections.
Meteorites, as well as shooting stars and meteors, frequently appear in showers. In such instances the fall usually consists of several hundred or thousand individual stones and the area over which they fall is several square miles in extent and roughly ellipsoidal in shape. One of the most remarkable of such falls [...] hundred thousand stones, varying in weight from fifteen pounds to a small fraction of an ounce, fell near Pultusk, Poland. Another remarkable fall of meteorites occurred at L'Aigle, France, in 1803. Between two thousand and three thousand stones fell over an ellipsoidal area of six and two-tenths miles in greatest diameter, the aggregate weight of the stones being not less than seventy-five pounds.
This fall of stones is of particular interest since it took place at a time when men were still very doubtful as to whether or not stones actually fell to earth from the heavens.
After this fall had occurred in a most populous district of France in broad daylight and attended by violent explosions that lasted for five or six minutes and were heard for a distance of seventy-five miles, no reasonable doubt could longer be held as to the actuality of such phenomena.
Meteorites are without exception of an igneous nature, that is, they are rocks that have solidified from a molten condition. They can be classified into three groups, Aerolites or Stony Meteorites, Siderolites or Stony-iron Meteorites, and Siderites or Iron Meteorites.
More iron meteorites seem to have fallen in Mexico and Greenland than in any other part of the world—at least of its land surface.
Yet strange to say, of all the meteorites that have been seen to fall only nine belong to the group of Siderites or Iron Meteorites, though the three largest meteorites known, Peary's meteorite from Cape York, Greenland, weighing 37½ tons, the meteorite lying on the plain near Bacubirito, Mexico, weighing about 20 tons, and the Willamette, Oregon, meteorite, weighing 15½ tons all belong to this group. Moreover, all the Canyon Diablo meteorites, which are strewn concentrically around Coon Mountain crater in northern Arizona to a distance of about five miles, are members of this same group. Coon Mountain or Meteor crater itself is a perfectly round hole, about six hundred feet deep and over four thousand feet in diameter and was formed, it is believed, by the impact of a huge meteorite which has never been found. It is believed that the Canyon Diablo meteorites, of which there are nearly four hundred individuals in the U. S. National Museum alone, were all members of this same fall. It is possible that these meteorites of the Canyon Diablo district, with the huge meteorite that produced the crater itself, formed the nucleus of a comet that struck the earth not more than five thousand years ago, according to the geological evidence.
All iron meteorites or siderites (from the Greek sideros, iron) are composed chiefly of alloys of nickel and iron. The percentage of nickel in these iron meteorites is very small, usually from five to ten per cent., while the iron forms about ninety or ninety-five per cent. of the whole. Cobalt is also present in practically all iron meteorites in small quantities of 1 per cent. or less. Usually small quantities of iron sulphide and phosphide as well as graphite or some other form of carbon appear in the iron meteorites and in some instances black and white diamonds have been found, as in some of the Canyon Diablo irons.
A very interesting and beautiful feature of many iron meteorites is the Widmanstätten figures which appear when a section of such a stone is polished and treated by means of a weak acid. These figures are due to the unequal solubility of the three different alloys of nickel and iron of which the stones are composed. The irons giving the Widmanstätten figures are known as octahedral irons. Other irons known as hexahedral irons give figures of a different type known as Neumann figures when the polished section is treated with weak acid, while other irons are so homogeneous in their composition that they show no figures at all.
Aerolites or Stony Meteorites occur more abundantly than iron or stony-iron types, and they are classified into many divisions and subdivisions according to their composition. In these stones appear certain compounds that are commonly met with in terrestrial igneous rocks. The mineral that is most abundant in the stony meteorites, composing sometimes nearly seventy-five per cent. of the stone, is a magnesium and iron silicate known as olivine, which is also usually present in terrestrial rocks of an igneous nature. Certain compounds found in the stony meteorites are rarely if ever found in terrestrial rocks, however, and these serve to distinguish the stony meteorites readily from stones of terrestrial origin. The alloys of iron and nickel, for instance, that occur in minor quantities in the stony meteorites and make up usually about ninety-five per cent. of the mass of the iron meteorites, are never found in terrestrial rocks. Although about thirty of the terrestrial elements are to be found in meteorites, the forms and compounds in which they appear are so characteristic and on the whole so different from those occurring in terrestrial rocks, that the analyst has no difficulty in distinguishing between the two. There are, for instance certain formations known as chondrules, peculiar spherical and oval shapes, varying in size from minute particles to objects the size of walnuts, appearing in many varieties of stony meteorites that are never found in terrestrial rocks, and that are one of the most puzzling features associated with the origin and nature of these stones. Sometimes the chondrules are so loosely embedded in the stone that they fall away when it is broken. In some instances almost the entire stone is made up of these chondrules. According to one theory the chondrules were originally molten drops, like fiery rain, and their internal structure, which is greatly varied, depends upon their conditions of cooling.
Stony meteorites, in which these chondrules are to be found, are spoken of as chondrites. There are white and gray and black chondrites and crystalline and carbonaceous chondrites, according to the nature of the chondrules found in the stones.
Stony meteorites also contain minute quantities of iron and nickel alloys in the form of drops or stringers.
Upon entering the earth's atmosphere stony meteorites become coated with a thin black crust which is a glass formed by the fusion of its surface materials by the heat generated during its passage through the atmosphere.
In many of the stony meteorites there also appear fine thread-like veins which are due to the fracturing of the stone prior to its entrance into the atmosphere.
The material filling these veins is coal black in color, opaque and of an unknown composition.
Many meteorites show signs of collisions and encounters with other meteorites outside of the atmosphere as would be expected as they travel in swarms and groups. Sometimes the entire meteorite is composed of fragments of two or more distinct stones cemented together. Such a stone is spoken of as a breccia.
In the third class of meteorites to which we now come, known as the stony-iron meteorites, there is a network or sponge of nickel-iron alloy, the interstices of which are filled with stony material.
When this network or sponge is continuous the meteorite is spoken of as a stony-iron pallasite. When the network of metal is more or less disconnected the meteorite is a meso-siderite.
If meteorites are heated in a vacuum, the conditions existing in interplanetary space being thus produced to a certain extent, they give forth their occluded gases and it has been found that these gases give spectra identical with the spectra of certain comets. Meteoric irons give forth hydrogen as their characteristic gas while the gases occluded in the stony meteorites are chiefly the oxides of carbon, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. It has been found that the amount of gases contained in a large meteorite or shower of meteorites is sufficient to form the tail of a comet. These facts all tend to strengthen the belief that meteorites are indeed cometary fragments.
In view of the fact that some geologists believe meteorites may be fragments of other worlds, it is of interest to know that so far no fossil-bearing meteorites have been found, and if meteorites are fragments of a shattered world, such worlds must have been reduced to a molten condition at the time of the catastrophe.
The rapid passage of the meteorite through the air leaves a partial vacuum in its trail into which rush the molecules of air from all sides, producing the characteristic noises that accompany the passage of a meteorite, which have been variously compared to the rattle of artillery, the distant booming of cannons or the rumble of thunder.
There may be, also, explosions of inflammable gases occluded in the crevices of the meteorite which will shatter it into fragments or the meteorite may be shattered by the resistance and pressure of the atmosphere or as a result of the extremes of temperature existing between the interior and its surface. Many meteorites have actually been seen to burst into fragments in the air with a loud report.
There is practically no foundation for the belief that germs of life have been brought to our planet on such igneous rocks. No microscopic examinations of meteorites have yielded any results that could be interpreted in favor of such a view.
Falls of meteorites are accompanied in nearly every instance by terrific explosions and sharp reports that can be heard for many miles around, often causing the ground to shake as in an earthquake. The meteorite itself has been described as resembling a ball of fire or the headlight of a locomotive, and is followed frequently by a trail of light or a cloud of smoke. At the time it enters our atmosphere a meteorite is moving with planetary velocity ranging from two to forty-five miles per second. Its interior is intensely cold, approaching in temperature the absolute zero of interplanetary space, and it is, therefore, far more brittle than it would be at ordinary temperatures. As it ploughs its way into the earth's atmosphere its surface temperature is soon raised by friction to at least 3,000° or 4,000° C., which is sufficient to fuse all surface materials into the characteristic black crust, with which stony meteorites are coated.
Meteorites are usually first seen at an altitude of fifty or sixty miles. Although they are moving with a velocity comparable to that of the planets, when they enter the earth's atmosphere, this velocity is so rapidly reduced by friction with the atmosphere that they usually drop to the surface of the earth with a velocity about equal to that of ordinary falling objects.
The flight of a meteorite often extends over a path several hundred miles in length and the meteorite may be seen by many observers in several different States and yet finally fall in some unknown spot and never be found.
The evidence gathered regarding the actual fall of meteorites is often contradictory. Some stones are too hot to handle for hours after they fall, others are merely warm, while still others have been picked up cool or even intensely cold. Meteorites have been seen to fall upon dried grass and upon straw without producing even charring effects. The evidence regarding the depths to which meteorites penetrate the ground is quite as conflicting. The largest of all the stony meteorites which fell at Krnyahinya, Hungary, weighed 647 pounds and buried itself to a depth of eleven feet. Yet Peary's Cape York iron meteorite, weighing 37½ tons, was only partially covered and showed no signs of abrasions of surface resulting from the fall.
The Willamette iron meteorite, weighing 16½ tons, lay in a forest when found and was not deeply buried. The Bacubirito iron meteorite, weighing 20 tons, lay in soft soil, barely beneath the level of the surface. On the other hand a fragment of a stony-iron meteorite, weighing 437 pounds, that fell at Estherville, Iowa, buried itself eight feet in stiff clay.
Geologists in charge of the meteoric collections of various museums quite frequently have stones sent to them for analysis that are reputed to be of celestial origin. More often than not such stones are found to be purely terrestrial in their origin. The composition of a meteorite is so characteristic and unique that such a stone can never be mistaken. Finds of bona-fide meteorites are on the whole extremely rare.
It is also a peculiar fact that meteorites are usually observed in the months when ordinary meteors or periodic swarms of meteors are least prevalent, that is in the months of May, June and July.