Meteorites are blocks of stones and/or iron, which result from the collision between asteroids. They may result from comets fragmentation as well. When they enter the atmosphere, meteorites catch on fire. Most of them disintegrate before they hit the ground, but nevertheless, a small quantity of them reaches the ground. The meteorite catches on fire because of the friction between the atmosphere and the meteorite. It then becomes a shooting star, or a meteor.

A lot of movies have used the meteorite themes, because, in addition to the fascination of scientists who get precious information on the solar system by analyzing them, meteorites scare people a lot. Indeed, today, there are no means of defending the Earth in case of an impact of a meteorite on the ground. In addition, it is absolutely impossible to send astronauts in space, to make them land on the meteorite and put some explosives to avoid an impact on Earth, like in the Armageddon movie, for instance.

The gigantic holes due to meteorites are enough to fuel this fear. Desert regions are particularly favorable to the craters observation. Indeed, neither vegetation nor buildings interfere with the observation of those gigantic holes. The biggest known crater is located in South Africa, in Vredefort town (the town was built at the center of the crater), and the diameter of the impact corresponds to approximately 300 km. According to scientists, the meteorite who hit the ground at that place must have been 10 km wide...