What exactly is the Bruderheim Meteorite?

There are three types of meteorites: stony, iron, and stony-iron meteorites. The Bruderheim Meteorite is a stony meteorite of the chondrite variety.

Chondrite meteorites are very ancient. They formed during the birth of our solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. They are made up of chondrules, which are round granular bits of minerals that were once molten and free floating in space. These droplets combined into a primitive asteroid that orbited the sun. At one point, the asteroid would have broken up, possibly due to a collision in space, and a smaller piece was set on a collision course with Earth.

Chondrites represent one of the oldest solid materials within our solar system and are believed to be the building blocks of the planetary system.

Most pieces of the Bruderheim Meteorite exhibit what is known as a ‘fusion crust’ —a dark and glassy coating caused by the meteor heating up as it passed through Earth’s atmosphere.