{"id":243147,"date":"2026-08-25T01:27:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T06:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/new-study-reveals-how-space-rocks-become-meteorites"},"modified":"2026-08-25T01:27:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T06:27:54","slug":"new-study-reveals-how-space-rocks-become-meteorites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/new-study-reveals-how-space-rocks-become-meteorites","title":{"rendered":"New study reveals how space rocks become meteorites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-study-reveals-how-space-rocks-become-meteorites.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What happens to a space rock as it falls through Earth\u2019s atmosphere and becomes a meteorite? By studying 75 meteorite falls captured on video and in photographs, researchers identified seven distinct phases in the journey from space rock to meteorite. Their findings show that melting and fragmentation, rather than simply evaporation and \u201cburning up,\u201d control how a rock loses mass, slows down and ultimately reaches the ground. The journal <i>Meteoritics &amp; Planetary Science<\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/maps.70203\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> these findings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe used to think that solid rocks would evaporate from the enormous heat and brilliant light generated in collisions with air,\u201d said meteor astronomer and lead author Dr. Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. \u201cWe found instead that first melting and then fragmentation control how a rock loses mass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The team found that a fireball goes through seven stages as it moves through Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Each stage is shaped by different physical processes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What happens to a space rock as it falls through Earth\u2019s atmosphere and becomes a meteorite? By studying 75 meteorite falls captured on video and in photographs, researchers identified seven distinct phases in the journey from space rock to meteorite. Their findings show that melting and fragmentation, rather than simply evaporation and \u201cburning up,\u201d control [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroid-comet-impacts","category-existential-risks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}