![]() There is no polite way to say this – most people who contact me saying, “It looks like a meteorite to me” do not know what to look for. Achondrites such as meteorites from asteroids, Moon, and Mars can look very much like some types of common rocks from Earth. It is often not possible to determine whether a rock is a meteorite just from its appearance, particularly in a photograph.Not every rock that “looks like” a meteorite is actually a meteorite Most rocks that fall from the sky are not meteorites.Not everything that falls from the sky is a meteorite It requires triangulation from several viewpoints, usually with cameras. Meteorite fragments land far from where you last saw the meteor and there is no way that observers at a single point on the Earth’s surface are going to find fragments of the meteorite.If you saw a meteor and later found a stone, then the stone is not a meteorite It is like lightning – You cannot hold a meteor in your hand.If you found a rock, it might be a meteorite, but it is definitely not a meteor It requires sophisticated chemical or mineralogical tests to distinguish a rock as an achondrite and to identify just what type of achondrite the rock is. Achondrites (meteorites from the Moon and Mars are achondrites) look like terrestrial rocks.If there is no fusion crust, then neither you nor I can identify a rock as an achondrite just “by looking” at it No lunar meteorite has yet been found in North America, South America, or Europe. Only about 7 in 1000 meteorites is from the Moon and 5 in 1000 is from Mars.The chance of finding a lunar or martian meteorite is even smaller Even when a meteorite is observed to fall, experienced meteorite hunters may find only a few stones when hunting dawn to dusk for a week. Only 137 of those occurred in North America. Since 1900, the numbers of recognized meteorite “falls” is about 814 for the whole Earth.The chance of finding a meteorite that has just fallen is even smaller Even experienced meteorite hunters can go for years between finds. ![]() About two thirds of meteorites found in the United States have been found in arid regions of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Kansas.
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