Visitors From Outer Space

       The biggest show that can be seen anywhere charges no admission. Its wonderful stage is the sky and the endless space of the universe and whatever lies beyond. If you look up at the sky on a clear night, there will seem to be thousands of twinkling lights hanging in space. For every one you can see there are millions too small to be seen. Many of these could be seen with a telescope, but it is believed many more are so far away that the biggest telescope in the world can't make them visible.
       Once in a while a star will seem to detach itself from its place in the sky and rush down to earth with a bright luminous tail streaming behind. This shooting star is known as a meteor. A meteor is the only thing from outer space that ever falls down to our earth so that we can actually touch and study it. Once it has fallen to the earth it is called a meteorite.
       By studying these visitors from space, scientists can tell a lot about them. They know the meteorites are made of heavy stony matter or of nickel-iron alloys similar to certain rocks we have on our own earth. Scientists also know that the meteorites are parts of broken up astral bodies such as planets or comets. There is a belt of such small bodies revolving around the sun between Jupiter and Mars, just like planets. Scientists think there was once a planet between Jupiter and Mars that came too close to Jupiter and was completely shattered by its great pull of gravity. Gravity is the force that pulls you back to the earth when you jump into the air. When the earth goes near this belt of asteroids or through a comet's tail we have a meteor shower and so it is thought that meteors are pieces of comets or broken planets. If you look at or touch a meteorite, you'll see that it is stony or metallic, and different from the wonderful glowing meteor it was during its air travels. We know how the meteorite goes through this magic transformation.
       Meteors travel through space at tremendous speeds, sometimes as great as forty-four miles per second. If you could go as fast, you could get from New York to San Francisco in about a minute. At such a terrific speed the friction or rubbing of the meteor against the air raises the temperature of the surface of the meteor so high that the meteor becomes white-hot and begins to burn, just as two pieces of wood begin to burn or smoke when they are rubbed together. The outside of the meteor actually melts, although it is made of stone or iron, and the melted matter is blown back to form a bright tail or streamer.
       Most meteors are fairly small or so small that they completely burn up before they reach the earth's surface, but there have been a few tremendous ones that have fallen down to earth. One of the most famous fell at Canyon Diablo, or Meteor Crater, in Arizona. This meteor, which weighed about one million tons, exploded when it hit the earth and only fragments of it have been found; but the great crater it made is about 570 feet deep and three-quarters of a mile wide. It was not the biggest meteor over to have fallen to earth. Yet if such a meteor should fall on Chicago, it's terrific impact would cause much more destruction and damage than an atom bomb. Stromquist.

When meteorites land!

Vsauce3 - "What Happens When a Meteorite Strikes Earth?"