meteorite shower

▪ astronomy

      swarm of separate but related meteorites that land on Earth's surface at about the same time and place. Meteorite showers are produced by the fragmentation of a large meteoroid in the atmosphere. The area in which the meteorites fall, the strewn-field, is generally a rough ellipse along the direction of flight. Because air resistance slows down larger fragments less quickly than smaller ones, the larger fragments travel farther, giving a size gradation along the direction of flight.

      Meteorite showers may contain large numbers of individual meteorites. For example, more than 100,000 fell at Pułtusk, Pol., in 1868; perhaps 14,000 at Holbrook, Ariz., U.S., in 1912; thousands at Chihuahua, Mex., in 1969; 2,000–3,000 at L'Aigle, France, in 1803; and 200–300 at Stannern, Moravia (now Stonařov, Cz.Rep.), in 1808. Although all of these observed showers consisted of stony meteorites, unobserved showers of iron meteorites are known by the finding of high concentrations of the same kinds of meteorites in certain areas, as at Bethanie, Namib. The fall of a shower of iron meteorites was observed in 1947 in the Sikhote-Alin region of the Russian Far East.

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