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Nature 407, 573-576 (5 October 2000) | doi:10.1038/35036666

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Meteorites: The long trip to Earth

Clark R. Chapman

In the 1790s, European scientists accepted the once preposterous notion that meteorites — rocks that fall from the skies — were of cosmic origin and not lightning bolts, volcanic ejecta, or the eighteenth- century equivalents of ghosts or UFOs. By coincidence, the first asteroid was discovered in space in 1801.