Small particles of stone or iron from space that survive passage through the atmosphere and then fall to Earth.
Meteorites have been observed since antiquity and have been known to come from the sky. Their celestial origin and fiery entry to Earth gave rise to the belief that they came from the gods and various myths, miraculous and religious, were built around them. In the 18th century, scientists, particularly those of the French Academy, began to question meteorites’ celestial origin, thinking it impossible that stones could fall from the sky. However, in 1794 Ernst F F Chladni, a German physicist, confirmed their extraterrestrial origin. A substantial fall of meteorites at L’Aigle in France in 1803 clinched the matter.