This is a list of lunar meteorites . That is, meteorites that have been identified as having originated from Earth's Moon.
Meteorite | Found | Mass (g) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Lahmada 020 | 2018 | 12170 | feldspathic breccia |
Yamato 791197 | 1979 | 52 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
Yamato 793169 | 1979 | 6 | mare basalt |
Yamato 793274/981031 | 1980–1999 | 195 | anorthosite-bearing basaltic regolith breccia [1] |
ALH A81005 | 1981 | 31 | feldspathic regolith breccia; FIRST RECOGNISED LUNAR METEORITE |
Yamato 82192/82193/86032 | 1983–1986 | 712 | feldspathic fragmental breccia |
EET 87521/96008 | 1987–1996 | 84 | basaltic or gabbroic fragmental breccia |
Asuka 881757 | 1988 | 442 | mare basalt, "ortho" cumulate |
MAC 88104/88105 | 1989 | 724 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
Calcalong Creek | ~1990 | 19 | basalt-bearing feldspathic regolith breccia |
QUE 93069/94269 | 1993–1994 | 24 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
QUE 94281 | 1994 | 23 | anorthosite-bearing basaltic regolith breccia |
Dar al Gani 262/996 | 1997–1999 | 525 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
Dar al Gani 400 | 1998 | 1425 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
Dhofar 081/280/910/1224 | 1999–2003 | 572 | feldspathic glassy-matrix fragmental breccia |
NWA 5000 | 1999 | 11500 | feldspathic breccia |
Yamato 983885 | 1999 | 290 | basalt-bearing feldspathic regolith breccia |
Kalahari 008/009 | 1999 | 14100 | feldspathic regolith breccia & basaltic fragmental breccia |
NWA 032/479 | 1999–2001 | 456 | mare basalt |
unnamed | 2000 | feldspathic regolith breccia | |
Northwest Africa (NWA) 482 | 2000? | 1015 | feldspathic impact-melt breccia |
Dhofar 025/301/304/308 | 2000 | 772 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
Dhofar 026/457/458/459/460/461/462/463/464/465/466/467/468 | 2000–2001 | 709 | feldspathic granulitic breccia |
NEA 003 | 2000–2001 | 124 | mare basalt with basaltic impact-melt breccia |
NWA 773/2700/2727/2977/3160/3333? | 2000–2005 | 1156 | complex fragmental and regolith breccia consisting of basalt and cumulate olivine gabbro |
Dhofar 287 | 2001 | 154 | mare basalt with regolith breccia |
Dhofar 302 | 2001 | 4 | feldspathic impact-melt breccia |
Dhofar 303/305/306/307/309/310/311/489/730/731/908/909/911/950/1085 | 2001–2003 | 1037 | feldspathic impact-melt breccia |
Dhofar 490/1084 | 2001–2003 | 124 | feldspathic fragmental breccia |
MET 01210 | 2001 | 22.8 | anorthosite-bearing basaltic regolith breccia |
Dhofar 733 | 2002 | 98 | feldspathic granulitic breccia |
Northeast Africa (NEA) 001 | 2002 | 262 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
SaU 169 | 2002 | 206 | KREEP-rich, mafic impact-melt breccia & regolith breccia |
LAP 02205/02224/02226/02436/03632/04841 | 2002–2005 | 1930 | mare basalt |
PCA 02007 | 2003 | 22 | feldspathic regolith breccia |
Dhofar 925/960/961 | 2003 | 106 | basalt-bearing feldspathic impact-melt breccia |
NWA 2200 | 2004 | 552 | feldspathic impact-melt breccia |
unnamed | 2004 | 24.2 | feldspathic breccia |
SaU 300 | 2004 | 153 | basalt-bearing feldspathic regolith breccia |
NWA 3136 | 2004 | 95 | anorthosite-bearing basaltic regolith breccia |
NWA 3163 | 2005 | 1634 | feldspathic granulitic breccia |
Dhofar 1180 | 2005 | 115 | basalt-bearing feldspathic fragmental or regolith breccia |
NWA 2995 | 2005 | 538 | basalt bearing feldspathic fragmental breccia |
MIL 05035 | 2005 | 142 | mare basalt |
unnamed | 2005 | 26 | |
unnamed | 2005 | 68 | mare basalt |
Dhofar 1428 | 2006 | 213 | feldspathic impact-melt breccia |
unnamed | 2006 | 18.7 | feldspathic breccia |
NWA 2998 [provisional] | 2006 | 183 | feldspathic breccia |
NWA 4472/4485 [provisional] | 2006 | 185 | |
Shisr 162 (Shişr 162) | 17 Feb 2006 | 5525 | feldspathic breccia [2] |
Anoual | 2006 | 5.9 | Found in Morocco [3] |
Aridal 017 | 2016 | 590 | Found in Morocco [4] |
AaU 012 | 2012 | 122.8 | Abar al' Uj 012, Saudi Arabia [5] |
NWA 10309 | 2015 | 16520 | feldspathic breccia. Largest known lunar meteorite as of October 2018 [update] . [6] |
NWA 11789 | 2017 | 5492 | feldspathic breccia |
NWA 11228 | 2017 | 140 | feldspathic breccia [6] |
NWA 14685 | 2020 | 8000 | fragmental breccia |
NWA 11444 | 2017 | 1323 | melt breccia [7] |
NWA 11182 | 2017 | 60 | feldspathic breccia |
Where multiple meteorites are listed (e.g. NWA 4472/4485), they are believed to be pieces of the same original body. The mass shown is the total.
Source: Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Earth and Planetary Science.
A meteorite is a rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater.
Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001) is a fragment of a Martian meteorite that was found in the Allan Hills in Antarctica on December 27, 1984, by a team of American meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. Like other members of the shergottite–nakhlite–chassignite (SNC) group of meteorites, ALH84001 is thought to have originated on Mars. However, it does not fit into any of the previously discovered SNC groups. Its mass upon discovery was 1.93 kilograms (4.3 lb).
A lunar meteorite is a meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon. A meteorite hitting the Moon is normally classified as a transient lunar phenomenon.
Ilyinets is an impact crater in Ukraine.
Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as meteorites.
The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) is a scientific research institute dedicated to study of the solar system, its formation, evolution, and current state. The Institute is part of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and is supported by the Science Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Located at 3600 Bay Area Boulevard in Houston, Texas, the LPI is an intellectual leader in lunar and planetary science. The Institute serves as a scientific forum attracting world-class visiting scientists, postdoctoral fellows, students, and resident experts; supports and serves the research community through newsletters, meetings, and other activities; collects and disseminates planetary data while facilitating the community's access to NASA astromaterials samples and facilities; engages and excites the public about space science; and invests in the development of future generations of scientists. The LPI sponsors and organizes several workshops and conferences throughout the year, including the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) held in March in the Houston area.
Yamato 791197, official abbreviation Y-791197, is a meteorite that was found in Antarctica on November 20, 1979.
A meteorite fall, also called an observed fall, is a meteorite collected after its fall from outer space was observed by people or automated devices. Any other meteorite is called a "find". There are more than 1,300 documented falls listed in widely used databases, most of which have specimens in modern collections. As of February 2023, the Meteoritical Bulletin Database had 1372 confirmed falls.
The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) was incorporated on March 12, 1969, in Washington, D.C. as a private, nonprofit corporation under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Institutional membership in the association currently stands at 113 universities. All member institutions have graduate programs in space sciences or technology. Besides the 98 member institutions in the United States, there are two member institutions in Canada, four in Europe, two in Israel, one in Australia and one in New Zealand, one in Hong Kong, two in Korea and two in the United Kingdom.
Dark slope streaks are narrow, avalanche-like features common on dust-covered slopes in the equatorial regions of Mars. They form in relatively steep terrain, such as along escarpments and crater walls. Although first recognized in Viking Orbiter images from the late 1970s, dark slope streaks were not studied in detail until higher-resolution images from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft became available in the late 1990s and 2000s.
A meteor air burst is a type of air burst in which a meteoroid explodes after entering a planetary body's atmosphere. This fate leads them to be called fireballs or bolides, with the brightest air bursts known as superbolides. Such meteoroids were originally asteroids and comets of a few to several tens of meters in diameter. This separates them from the much smaller and far more common "shooting stars", that usually burn up quickly upon atmospheric entry.
The Appley Bridge meteorite is a meteorite that hit ground at Halliwell Farm in Appley Bridge, Lancashire, England at around 8:45 PM on Tuesday, 13 October 1914.
Traces of Catastrophe: A Handbook of Shock-Metamorphic Effects in Terrestrial Meteorite Impact Structures is a book written by Bevan M. French of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a comprehensive technical reference on the science of impact craters. It was published in 1998 by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), which is part of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). It was originally available in hard copy from LPI, but is now only available as a portable document format (PDF) e-book free download.
Bunburra Rockhole is an anomalous basaltic achondritic meteorite. Originally classified as a eucrite, it was thought to belong to a group of meteorites that originated from the asteroid 4 Vesta, but has since been reclassified based on oxygen and chromium isotopic compositions. It was observed to fall on July 21, 2007, 04:43:56 local time, by the Desert Fireball Network (DFN). Two fragments weighing 150g and 174g were recovered by the DFN at 31°21.0′S, 129°11.4′E in the Nullarbor Desert region, South Australia in November of the same year. This is the first meteorite to be recovered using the Desert Fireball Network observatory.
Lawrence August Taylor was an American geochemist and petrologist working at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the University of Tennessee. He is the founder of the UT Planetary Geosciences Institute and was also its director until late 2017.
Roger Jay Phillips was an American geophysicist, planetary scientist, and professor emeritus at the Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests included the geophysical structure of planets, and the use of radar and gravity to investigate the surfaces and interiors of the planets.
NWA 11789 is a lunar meteorite that was found in the country of Mauritania. It has been broken into six fragments, which can be reassembled like a puzzle. For this reason, the meteorite is also known as The Moon Puzzle.
Tagounite is a rural Moroccan commune in the Zagora Province, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco, with about 17,412 inhabitants as of the 2004 census.