Meteorites are a hot collectible item nowadays, they became established into the collectibles marketplace years ago, in large part due to the business accumen of Darryl Pitt. Whilst running his music management firm from New York, Pitt, and 2 partners created the Macovich Collection, a hoard of iron meteorites. Meteors and meteorites once again again became popular.

Meteorites enter the earth atmosphere everywhere, find them by looking where they land, this is the fall find method. Meteorites that are recovered after being seen streaking through the atmosphere or impacting upon the Earth are called falls . All other meteorites are known as finds. The trick in finding them is simply to look where their burned trail remains, and they have a fair chance of being discovered. Meteor craters are a common sense place to look as well, fragments are always a good bet when the main body has been removed.

Meteoriticists, the hard core collectors, scour the Earth searching for these lost fragments. Huge areas are covered, often on foot and staring at the ground, just to find a couple of specimins.

Meteor showers occur over an expanse of time, ranging from hours to weeks, as the Earth travells through space, crossing meteor streams, or clusters. These streams of fragments originate from comets orbiting around the sun. Comets throw thier debris all around the solar system, and some find thier way to Earth as meteorites.

These prehistoric space travellers are extremely difficult to find and, apart from when they have been seen to fall, are practically impossible to find in temperate zones, where vegetation shrouds thier whereabouts. Most of the 22,000 or so, known meteorites are from the great desserts, both hot and cold deserts because here they are easy to spot, and remain on view for extended periods of time. Most meteorites are region associated, they tend to be named after the town, or region they were found near.

Pick up a strange object, and try to guage the weight, when compared to an earthly rock. You see, meteorites are very heavy for thier size, and contain large quantities of iron, this is a quick identifier, see if the rock is magnetic. Meteoritic material always stems from our solar system, they form a full spectrum of the many minerological wonders that have developed since our stars creation, along with the fractures and fissures that are evidence of destruction on a heavenly scale.

Meteorites are classified into three main categories:

Irons

Stony Irons

Stones