A meteorite, as a substance, is solid extraterrestrial material that has survived passage through Earth’s atmosphere and reached the surface, typically classified into stony (chondrites and achondrites), iron, and stony-iron types based on mineralogical and chemical composition. Chondritic meteorites preserve primitive nebular components such as chondrules and refractory inclusions, often with CI-like bulk solar abundances for nonvolatile elements. Iron meteorites consist predominantly of Fe-Ni alloys (kamacite and taenite) and may exhibit Widmanstätten patterns reflecting slow cooling in differentiated parent bodies. Meteorites are key samples for cosmochemistry, isotopic dating, and constraining early Solar System processes and planetary differentiation.
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