• Question: how many years ago was it before the first meteor was discovered?

    Asked by arts532owse3 to niamhtopping on 16 Oct 2025.
    • Photo: Niamh Topping

      Niamh Topping answered on 16 Oct 2025:

      This is a really good question! First, I think it’s important to explain the difference between a meteor and a meteorite. A meteor is what we call a rock from space (from an asteroid or planet, etc) before it’s passed through the Earth’s atmosphere and landed – these are shooting stars. Once it’s landed on the Earth’s surface, then we call it a meteorite. So all meteorites were once meteors, but not all meteors become meteorites.
      One of the first witnessed falls of a meteorites was in France in 1492…but it was a lot longer before people realised that these rocks actually came from space! It was only in the early 1800s that scientists agreed that actually, these rocks were from space and not Earth

Comments

  • Photo: Andrew M

    Andrew M commented on :

    Mysterious rocks falling from the skies were known and commented on as early as the Bronze Age, even if their origin and nature wasn’t understood. As gifts from the gods they were sometimes given cultic significance and placed in temples as “Houses of the Gods” (Baetyls).

    Before the invention of smelting, meteoric iron was the only source of iron available, which might explain why, amongst all the gold and precious objects found in Tutankhamun’s tomb there was a meteoric iron dagger, bracelet and headrest (which sounds rather uncomfortable). Meteoric iron objects as old as 5000 years have been found. In Egypt iron was associated with the sky, but it’s not clear if the sources pre-smelting iron were always recognised as having fallen from the skies, unlike some of the cultic rocks, or if they were seen as having come from just weird, rare, precious and rather useful rocks. High status, but not necessarily celestial or divine.