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# meteorite

«meteorite» in Mova's school dictionary: **a piece of rock or metal from space that has fallen…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (a meteorite, meteorites)

### meaning for a pupil

A meteorite is a piece of rock or metal from space that has fallen through the air and landed on the Earth's surface. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

In science lessons about space, three words are taught together: a meteoroid is a small rock travelling in space; a meteor is the streak of light («shooting star») when it burns in our air; a meteorite is the piece that reaches the ground. Many meteorites are older than the Earth itself. A giant one hit the Earth about 66 million years ago and helped wipe out the dinosaurs. Meteorites are often heavy because they contain iron. Phrases: «meteorite impact», «meteorite crater», «iron meteorite».

### examples

- The museum has a meteorite you can touch. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#x1)
- A meteorite made this huge crater in Arizona. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#x2)
- Most meteorites land in the sea, because most of Earth is water. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#x3)
- Scientists found meteorites on the ice in Antarctica. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#x4)
- The meteorite was heavy because it was made mostly of iron. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#x5)
- A meteor that reaches the ground becomes a meteorite. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#x6)
- Some meteorites came from Mars or the Moon. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/#x7)

### note

Plural «meteorites». Trap: meteor (the flash in the sky) vs meteorite (the rock on the ground) vs meteoroid (rock in space); the «-ite» ending is like «rock». Myth: most meteorites are cool or just warm when they land, not red hot.

### In the corpora

- [Tsunamis can also be caused by landslides, volcanic eruptions and, very rarely, meteorite impacts.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/45-tsunamis/13/)
- [Vesta is the second most massive asteroid, and a giant impact on it blasted off rock that still falls to Earth as meteorites.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/9-asteroids-and-the-asteroid-belt/10/)
- [Most meteorites are chips of asteroids from the belt between Mars and Jupiter.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/16-meteors-meteorites-and-shooting-stars/14/)
- [A few hundred known meteorites were blasted off the Moon or Mars.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/space/16-meteors-meteorites-and-shooting-stars/15/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «meteorite» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/meteorite/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.