What does meteorite mean?
Word: Meteorite
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Meteorite means a piece of rock or metal from space that has passed through the air and landed on the earth.
How do you spell meteorite?
Syllables: me - te - or - ite
Tricky part: Pupils often swap the o and the r and write meteroite. The o comes first.
Watch out for: meteroite, metorite, meteorrite
Memory tip: Trust the alphabet here: o comes before r there, and it comes before r in this word too.
Meteorite in a sentence
Example 1: The museum's meteorite is black, heavy and covered in tiny pits.
Example 2: A farmer in Rajasthan found a meteorite in his field after seeing a bright flash in the sky.
Example 3: Our science club saved up to buy a tiny slice of meteorite for the lab.
Fun Fact
The largest meteorite ever found, the Hoba meteorite in Namibia, weighs around 60 tonnes and still lies where it was discovered in 1920.
Practise the CREST Way
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the word in the sentence and choose it:
Our teacher passed round a small iretoetme that had travelled through space for millions of years.
a) meteor
b) meteoric
c) meteorite
d) meteoroid
Show answer
c) meteorite. Nine letters with two t's and no d or c can only make meteorite; meteor is far too short.
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to form a word:
m_teor_te
a) a, i
b) i, i
c) e, i
d) e, a
Show answer
c) e, i. It begins like metre, with an e, and ends in ite, as kite does.
Word Cookie
Find the extra letter in the word:
meteoritte
a) r
b) o
c) t
d) e
Show answer
c) t. Only one t comes just before the final e.
Spell-o-Spell
Three words in the list are spelt correctly. Choose what the misspelt one means.
1. constelation 2. comet 3. meteorite 4. orbit
a) the curved path one object follows around another
b) a space rock that has landed on the earth
c) a ball of ice and dust with a glowing tail
d) a group of stars that forms a pattern in the sky
Show answer
d) a group of stars that forms a pattern in the sky. A double l is missing from constellation, the word for a pattern of stars.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Why do most meteors never become meteorites?
a) They burn up in the air before they reach the ground.
b) They are too small to be seen from the ground.
c) They are pulled back into space by the Moon.
d) They turn into comets as they fall.
Show answer
a) They burn up in the air before they reach the ground.
2. A scientist slicing open a meteorite hopes to learn about ____.
a) how fast the Moon goes round the earth
b) what the early solar system was made of
c) how the tides rise and fall on the coast
d) why the seasons change through the year
Show answer
b) what the early solar system was made of
