We went to an interesting meteorite museum in San Pedro de Atacama. It was in a big white geodesic dome. We saw 77 meteorites that were collected in the Atacama Desert. Meteorites move in space at the speed of 137 000 km/hr but they slow down when they hit the earth's atmosphere. This reaction with the atmosphere cause the meteorite to burn up and this reduces the mass by 90% ! Even still, some are big enough to create huge craters in the ground when they land. We see this as a shooting star when the meteorite burns up. We were able to touch some of them. There was one that was 4 500 million years old!! Now that is super old! To tell if it is a meteorite, it will stick to a magnet because it has iron in it. Also you can see bits of metallic iron if you cut into the meteorite.
I really liked the museum. My favourite part was being able to touch the meteorites.