What Gives Meteorites Their Shape? (IMAGE)

New York University

What Gives Meteorites Their Shape?

Caption

Meteoroids coming from outer space are randomly shaped, but many of these, which land on earth as meteorites, are found to be carved into cones. To explore the forces that produce cone-shaped meteorites, researchers replicated meteoroids traveling through outer space: clay objects, attached to a rod, served as 'mock meteorites' that erode while moving through water.

Credit

NYU's Applied Mathematics Laboratory

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